Creating and enforcing norms, with special reference to sanctions

Posner, Richard A.; Rasmusen, Eric Bennett

doi:10.1016/s0144-8188(99)00013-7

Cited by 314 publications

(142 citation statements)

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“…To allow for differences between group norms and personal normative opinions we elicit subject responses with the incentivized coordination task and then again, for the same context, without the coordination task or incentives. While norms are characterized by a shared understanding of appropriate behavior, we define a personal normative opinion as "self expectations for behavior constructed in specific situations on the basis of generalized internalized values" (Elster 1989a;Elster 1989b;Posner and Rasmusen 1999;Schwartz et al 2005). 18 It follows that an individual's personal normative opinion need not track a group norm (Bicchieri 2006;Young 2008).…”

Section: "An Ethical Norm Reflects a Shared Agreement Regarding The Amentioning

confidence: 99%

A Multimethod Approach to Identifying Norms and Normative Expectations Within a Corporate Hierarchy: Evidence from the Financial Services Industry

Burks

Krupka

2012

Management Science

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu This paper presents the results of a field study at a large financial services firm that combines multiple methods, including two economic experiments, to measure ethical norms and their behavioral correlates. Standard survey questions eliciting ethical evaluations of actions in on-thejob ethical dilemmas are transformed into a series of incentivized coordination games in the first experiment. We use the results of this experiment to identify the actual ethical norms for financial adviser behavior held by key personnel -financial advisers and their corporate leaders -in three settings: a clash of incentives between serving the client and earning commissions, a dilemma about fiduciary responsibility to a client, and a dilemma about whistle-blowing on a peer. We also measure the beliefs of financial advisers about the ethical expectations of their corporate leaders and the beliefs of corporate leaders about financial adviser norms. In addition, we ask financial advisers about their personal normative opinions, matching a common methodology in the literature. We find, first, systematic agreements in the normative evaluations across the corporate hierarchy that are consistent with ex ante expectations, but second, we also find some measurable differences between the normative expectations of corporate leaders about on-thejob behavior and the actual norms shared among financial advisers. When there is a normative mismatch across the hierarchy we are able to distinguish miscommunication from ethical disagreement between leaders and employees. Our subjects also report their job satisfaction and take part in a second incentivized experiment in which it is costly to report private information honestly. A last finding is that a mismatch between advisers' personal ethical opinions and corporate norms -especially those of peers -strongly correlates with job dissatisfaction, and less strongly but significantly with the willingness to be dishonest. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E S NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARYWe use coordination games with cash payoffs as well as standard survey questions to identify the norms financial advisers at a large financial services firm hold about behavior toward their clients. We also measure their beliefs about what their corporate leaders expect, and the actual expectations of those leaders, along with the beliefs of leaders about the ethics of advisers. We find much normative agreement, but also...

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Section: "An Ethical Norm Reflects a Shared Agreement Regarding The Amentioning

confidence: 99%

A Multimethod Approach to Identifying Norms and Normative Expectations Within a Corporate Hierarchy: Evidence from the Financial Services Industry

Burks

Krupka

2012

Management Science

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“…Lorsque sanctionner devient couteux, alors les agents anticipent qu'ils ne seront jamais sanctionnés par leurs pairs et adoptent donc un comportement opportuniste en choisissant l'eff ort de production le plus bas possible qui maximise leur utilité. Comment alors expliquer que, dans la réalité, les individus n'hésitent pas à punir ceux qui dévient des normes établies au sein du groupe même si cela est coûteux pour l'équipe dans son ensemble [Posner et Rasmusen 1999] ? Les modèles avec préférences sociales et notamment les modèles d'aversion à l'inégalité permettent alors d'expliquer l'existence de pression par les pairs au sein d'une équipe de travail.…”

Section: Resultsunclassified

“…Nous allons également supposer que les sanctions ne sont pas appliquées de façon automatique mais suppose une décision de la part des agents. Dès lors que les sanctions font l'objet d'une décision particulière de la part des agents, alors il convient d'associer un coût à la décision de sanctionner un pair [Posner et Rasmusen 1999]. En eff et, toute décision nécessite du temps et un eff ort géné-ralement coûteux pour celui qui l'exerce.…”

Section: La Pression Des Pairs Par Les Sanctionsunclassified

Les conditions d’efficacite de la pression par les pairs, ou comment faire respecter les normes sociales au sein des organisations

Masclet

2016

SOEP

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Résumé : Cet article vise à étudier les conditions d'effi cacité de la pression des pairs comme mécanisme permettant de réduire les comportements de passager clandestin au sein des groupes. La comparaison des modèles avec et sans pression des pairs montre que sous certaines conditions le contrôle mutuel peut inciter les agents à fournir davantage d'eff ort de production. Il existe toutefois des limites à la pression des pairs : (1) le contrôle mutuel peut s'avérer coûteux pour le groupe dès lors que les eff orts de production et de contrôle sont fortement substituables ; (2) la menace de sanction n'est pas crédible lorsque sanctionner devient coûteux pour le punisseur (coût d'opportunité, risque de représailles, etc.). Nous montrons toutefois que lorsque les individus sont suffi samment averses à l'inégalité, ils peuvent être incités à sanctionner leurs pairs même en présence d'un cout à sanctionner.Mots Clé : pression par les pairs, normes sociales, contrôle mutuel. JEL Classifi cation : D7, J33, J5. TERMS OF EFFICIENCY PEER PRESSURE OR HOW TO RESPECT THE STANDARDS IN SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONSAbstract: Th e purpose of this paper is to investigate the conditions under which peer pressure helps in deterring the free riding problem. Th e comparison of situations with and without peer pressure indicates that under certain conditions peer pressure may 164David Masclet solve the well-known free riding problem. However there are several limitations to peer pressure including (1) the fact that peer monitoring is costly when production and monitoring eff orts are substituted; (2) the threat of sanctions is not credible when sanctions are costly to implement. Nevertheless, strongly inequality averse individuals may still be encouraged to punish free riders despite the existence of a cost to -in the punishment of free riders.

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“…The multiplicity of norm enforcement regimes really becomes apparent only when one considers the multiplicity of normative orderings -not only state-made law and its legally elaborated sanction system but also and above all social norms and the associated social sanctions (on forms and sanctioning logic see Ellickson 1991Ellickson , 2001Posner and Rasmusen 1999). Here, too, capturing and analysing the diversity of norm enforcement regimes requires a wide-angle lens.…”

Section: The Multiplicity Of Sanction Modes As a Selection Problem: Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Posner and Eric B. Rasmusen (1999) speak of a choice of sanctions, a concept they introduce as follows:…”

Section: Choice Of Sanctionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The World of Rules. A Somewhat Different Measurement of the World

Schuppert¹

2017

Global Perspectives on Legal History

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Creating and enforcing norms, with special reference to sanctions

Cited by 314 publications

References 2 publications

A Multimethod Approach to Identifying Norms and Normative Expectations Within a Corporate Hierarchy: Evidence from the Financial Services Industry

A Multimethod Approach to Identifying Norms and Normative Expectations Within a Corporate Hierarchy: Evidence from the Financial Services Industry

Les conditions d’efficacite de la pression par les pairs, ou comment faire respecter les normes sociales au sein des organisations

The World of Rules. A Somewhat Different Measurement of the World

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