Conflict in Coordination: Status Can Lead to Inferior Outcomes

Collaborative outcomes can often be used to competitively evaluate and rank individual performance. Higher status team members can influence team choices to benefit them. Using a payoff-dominant model of the stag hunt coordination game, we developed hypotheses regarding the role of status and competitiveness on coordination on Pareto optimal solutions. The hypotheses were empirically tested in three studies. Participants were randomly assigned to dyads that were either teammates or competitors. Status was established in a manipulation task, followed by the coordination game. In Studies 1 and 2, status was found to play a significant role, resulting in sub-optimal outcomes for competitors, but not teammates. In Study 3, participants were re-paired prior to the coordination task, which increased the likelihood of competitors coordinating on the Pareto optimal solution. Implications for real-world decisions within organizations, particularly within those with a culture of competitiveness, are discussed.