Leader comparisons and the evolution of risk taking cultures in teams
Making the performance and actions of successful performers transparent is widely regarded to motivate other team members. We examine the consequences of success visibility on the investment choices of team members in a laboratory experiment, where top performance is the result of fortunate, but risky investment behavior. We examine whether the visibility of top performers leads to the adaptation of risky decision-making choices throughout the team. The experiment furthermore highlights under which conditions such risk-taking culture is established. Particularly, we investigate how global increasing or decreasing financial return trends interact with performance visibility, and which demographic features of team members can exacerbate or mitigate risk behavior adaptation.