Synopsis: Can economically efficient outcomes be obtained and sustained in the absence of externally enforced property rights? We study the evolutionary properties of a game that exhibits two well-defined Nash equilibria: one generates an inefficient outcome while the other set generates an efficient outcome supported by the potential for retaliation. Although standard forward-looking refinemen...

An experiment on how communication affects cooperation in a social dilemma shows that computer mediated communication (CMC) and face to face communication have markedly different effects on patterns of collective behavior. While face to face communication sustains stable cooperation, CMC makes cooperative agreements in groups extremely fragile, giving rise to waves of opportunistic behavior. Fu...

There is little understanding of how distributed writing groups manage their collaboration and what kinds of support are most useful. The paper presents three case studies of distributed collaborative writing groups in academia. The process evolves over time, constantly adapting to changing circumstances. Co-authors offer and make use of a range of information. Their subsequent opportunistic us...

Although the Internet is great for transferring information, transactions in Internet auctions have a greater information asymmetry than corresponding transactions in traditional environments because current auction market mechanisms allow the seller to remain anonymous and to easily change identities. Buyers must rely on the seller's description of a product and ability to deliver the product ...

W e consider a supply chain with a supplier that sells to a retailer under a revenue-sharing arrangement. Demand is uncertain and unobservable to the supplier. We assume that the retailer is rational, that is, the retailer behaves opportunistically and underreports sales revenues to the supplier whenever such underreporting is profitable. Assuming the supplier has the ability to audit the retai...

In certain interorganizational system (IOS) adoptions, IOS initiators have incentives to exploit the full benefit to their trading partners once the partners implement the IOS. This is termed ex post opportunistic behavior on the part of the initiator. The anticipated ex post opportunistic behavior of the initiator can deter the trading partner’s ex ante IOS adoption decision, which prevents th...

Cooperation in public good games is greatly promoted by positive and negative incentives. In this paper, we use evolutionary game dynamics to study the evolution of opportunism (the readiness to be swayed by incentives) and the evolution of trust (the propensity to cooperate in the absence of information on the co-players). If both positive and negative incentives are available, evolution leads...