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Learning under supervision: an experimental study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Raghuram Iyengar  and
Andrew Schotter
Raghuram Iyengar*
Affiliation:
Wharton School, 3730 Walnut Street, 700Jon M. Huntsman Hall, Philadelphia, 19104 PA, USA
Andrew Schotter*
Affiliation:
New York University, 269 Mercer St. 7th Floor, New York, NY 10003, USA
*
e-mail: [email protected]
e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

In many market environments, for example in investment banking, salesforce management and others, workers and supervisors work closely as a team. Workers are paid a fixed salary and supervisors determine any raises, which are typically dependent on how well the organization does. In such scenarios, a supervisor who constantly offers suggestions can create a problem—typically a worker cannot ignore his supervisor's advice, yet if such advice is wrong and is followed, it will only decrease firm profits. We conduct a laboratory experiment to address a question critical for such settings—does the relationship between advisor and worker interfere with the learning abilities of the worker? The answer is a resounding no. In fact, subjects who have a supervisor advising them and whose advice is costly to ignore actually learn better than those with an advisor whose advice can be ignored. An even more striking result is that advisees as well as advisors in both these conditions learn better than subjects with no advisors. Our result can be attributed to the presence of advice and has direct relevance to learning in many environments.

Keywords

Group decision makingAdviceLearningSupervision

JEL classification

C91: Laboratory, Individual Behavior C92: Laboratory, Group Behavior
Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , June 2008 , pp. 154 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10683-007-9164-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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