Two Heads Are Better than One: Task Division and Decision Control in Inventory Planning
通过行为实验研究库存规划中任务分工何时提升绩效，发现任务挑战性（如需求不确定性高）时分工更有效，其机制是分工促进个体调整决策以抵消伙伴错误，使最终决策更稳定。
We examine when and how task division improves performance for inventory planning. Specifically, we consider a decentralized inventory management context with two interdependent subtasks: preparing a forecast and setting a service level. Using a behavioral experiment, we reveal that the task challenge moderates the relationship between task division and performance. Our findings indicate that task division improves performance when the task becomes more challenging, such as under high demand uncertainty. It facilitates counteracting behavior, where individuals adjust their decisions to counterbalance their partner's errors, leading to more stabilized final decisions. We identify this counteracting behavior as a critical mechanism driving the benefits of task division, mainly when subtasks are interdependent. We demonstrate the robustness of our findings by examining an egalitarian system, where decision-making authority is shared among team members, and a hierarchical system, where decision control resides entirely with one team member.