Context and Aggregation: An Experimental Study of Bias and Discrimination in Organizational Decisions
通过实验研究集中与分散组织结构如何影响个体行为聚合，发现集中结构下评估者会调整其保留水平和歧视能力，而分散结构下则无此适应。
This paper addresses a notable gap at the intersection of organizational economics and organization science: how does organizational context influence aggregation of individual behavior in organizational decisions? Using basic centralized versus decentralized organizational structures as building blocks for our experimental design, we examine whether assignment of organizational positions, incentive schemes, and structural configuration induce endogenous adaptation in the form of change in reservation levels (bias) or modified discrimination capability in subjects’ behavior. We found that evaluators adapted their reservation and discrimination levels in centralized structures, whereas they did not generally adapt their reservation and discrimination levels when placed in decentralized structures. We identify mechanisms that explain these findings; explain how they influence aggregate, organizational behavior; and discuss implications for research and practice. History: This paper has been accepted for the Organization Science Special Issue on Experiments in Organizational Theory. Funding: M. Warglien acknowledges financial support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under [Grant Agreement 732942]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2021.1502 .