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Reputational consequences of cooperation-promoting behaviours

University of British Columbia

Cooperation is essential to a well-functioning organization. Punishment and partner choice are recognized as two mechanisms through which cooperation can be promoted within groups and organizations: People cooperate and are rewarded by further social connection, or fail to cooperate and incur social or material sanctions. While both punishment and partner choice can help promote cooperation, these mechanisms can also carry certain personal costs for the punisher or chooser and thus warrant further exploration. In this dissertation, I examine the reputational implications of punishment and partner choice behaviours. First, I examine the reputational consequences of punishing, and in particular I test whether the reputational consequences vary depending upon the punisher’s perceived motive for the punishment. Second, I examine the reputational consequences of choosing a partner who exhibits a willingness to cooperate over a partner who exhibits an ability to cooperate. I further test whether people are aware of the reputational benefits they are garnering as a result of their partner choice decisions, whether they change their partner choice decisions depending upon certain factors within their environment, and whether such reputational effects serve as honest signals. Altogether, I explore the reputational implications of individuals’ punishment behavior and their partner selection.

Text

2021-04-21

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/77872

Business Administration - Marketing

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/