Simultaneous versus Sequential Modes of Communication

This paper studies an organizational knowledge sharing process which requires costly "teaching" and "learning" e¤orts on the part of the sender and receiver, respectively. The process is a team problem in which the principal rewards successful communication by optimally rewarding performance. In this setting we compare two modes of communication with regard to e¢ ciency. The …rst is sequential in which the sender precommits to teaching and the receiver acts as a follower. The second is simultaneous where each agent simultaneously exerts e¤ort. A key result is that the sequential mode dominates when teaching and learning are complements, but the simultaneous mode dominates if teaching and learning are substitutes. JEL Classi…cation: L5. I gratefully acknowledge the generous …nancial support provided by the Marshall School of Business. I bene…ted from discussions with Ricardo Alonso, Odilon Camera, Richard Eastin, Krishna Kumar, Oguzhan Ozbas, Michael Raith, Heikki Rantakari, Jan Zabojnik and Fernando Zapatero.