Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/177254 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 002.2018
Publisher: 
Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM), Milano
Abstract: 
We investigate how the selection process of a leader affects team performance with respect to social learning. We use a lab experiment in which an incentivized guessing task is repeated in a star network with the leader at the center. Leader selection is either based on competence, on self-confidence, or made at random. Teams with random leaders do not underperform compared to competent leaders, and they even outperform teams whose leader is selected based on self-confidence. The reason is that random leaders are better able to use the knowledge within the team. We can show that it is the declaration of the selection procedure which makes non-random leaders overly influential. We set up a horse race between several rational and naïve models of social learning to investigate the micro-level mechanisms. We find that overconfidence and conservatism contribute to the fact that overly influential leaders mislead their team.
Subjects: 
Social Networks
Social Influence
Confidence
Overconfidence
Bayesian Updating
Naïve Learning
Sortition
Wisdom of Crowds
JEL: 
D83
D85
C91
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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