An honest day's pay: cooperation among entrepreneurs vs. students, and linkages to real-world business success

Article


Batsaikhan, M. and Putterman, L. 2019. An honest day's pay: cooperation among entrepreneurs vs. students, and linkages to real-world business success. Southern Economic Journal. 86 (2), pp. 478-502. https://doi.org/10.1002/soej.12391
TypeArticle
TitleAn honest day's pay: cooperation among entrepreneurs vs. students, and linkages to real-world business success
AuthorsBatsaikhan, M. and Putterman, L.
Abstract

The importance of cooperative behavior in business environments has been theorized in the field of management. However, measuring cooperation quantitatively is often challenging. We take advantage of experimental methods to overcome this issue. Particularly, we study the decisions that small-scale entrepreneurs in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, make in a laboratory property rights dilemma experiment, comparing these to the decisions of student counterparts in the same and other countries, and looking for correlations between lab decisions and success in real-world business sales. We find that Mongolian entrepreneurs generally achieve much higher cooperation levels and hence higher experimental earnings than Mongolian students. Also, among individual participants, producing and desisting from theft in the lab setting is correlated at the 1% level with real-world business sales. Our findings align with the view that cooperative impulses or abidance of social norms can be an advantage in business relationships.

Keywordsentrepreneurship; social dilemma; cooperation
Sustainable Development Goals16 Peace, justice and strong institutions
Middlesex University ThemeHealth & Wellbeing
PublisherWiley
JournalSouthern Economic Journal
ISSN0038-4038
Electronic2325-8012
Publication dates
Online31 Jul 2019
Print07 Oct 2019
Publication process dates
AcceptedMar 2019
Deposited25 Jan 2024
Output statusPublished
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1002/soej.12391
Web of Science identifierWOS:000481090200001
LanguageEnglish
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