Organizations, Diffused Pivotality and Immoral Outcomes

Arbeitspapier

This paper studies how organizational design affects moral outcomes. Subjects face the decision to either kill mice for money or to save mice. We compare a Baseline treatment where subjects are fully pivotal to a Diffused-Pivotality treatment where subjects simultaneously choose in groups of eight. In the latter condition eight mice are killed if at least one subject opts for killing. The fraction of subjects deciding to kill is higher when pivotality is diffused. The likelihood of killing is monotone in subjective perceptions of pivotality. On an aggregate level many more mice are killed in Diffused-Pivotality than Baseline.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 7442

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual ; Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles ; Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights ; Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
• Subject: morality ; pivotality ; experiment ; organization ; responsibility ; Ethik ; Verhalten ; Gruppenentscheidung ; Entscheidung bei Unsicherheit ; Test

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Falk, Armin ; Szech, Nora
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2013

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/80575
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET