Leaders as role models and ‘belief managers’ in social dilemmas

Gächter, Simon; Renner, Elke

Abstract

We investigate the link between leadership, beliefs and pro-social behavior in social dilemmas. This link is interesting because field evidence suggests that people's behavior in domains like charitable giving, tax evasion, corporate culture and corruption is influenced by leaders (CEOs, politicians) and beliefs about others’ behavior. Our framework is a repeated experimental public goods game with and without a leader who makes a contribution to the public good before others (the followers). We find that leaders strongly shape their followers’ initial beliefs and contributions. In later rounds, followers put more weight on other followers’ past behavior than on the leader's current action. This creates a path dependency the leader can hardly correct. We discuss the implications for understanding belief effects in naturally occurring situations.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 2018-10
• Journal: Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization
• Print ISSN: 0167-2681
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 154
• Pages: 321-334
• APA6 Citation: Gächter, S., & Renner, E. (2018). Leaders as role models and ‘belief managers’ in social dilemmas. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 154, 321-334. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2018.08.001
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2018.08.001
• Keywords: Economics and Econometrics; Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268118302063