Séminaire

Around a table Social lubricants for trust building

Pablo Brañas-Garza (Middlesex University)

8 avril 2016, 11h00–12h15

Salle MS 003

Food Economics and Policy Seminar

Résumé

Motivation: Many transactions in economic life are preceded by social interactions. They are central, for example, to negotiations, mergers and acquisitions procedures, and often at the start of business, government, and personal negotiations. These interactions are an important part of the culture of organizations all over the globe. This importance can be recognized, for example, by the fact that business meals tend to be tax-deductible at least in part (the IRS considers that 50% of such expenses are deductible in general, for HMRC the part of the expense that is “wholly and exclusively” for the purpose of generating profits). Not just private businesses, government offices and universities also engage in subsidizing meals between members of their organizations and external agents. Given this widespread practice it is surprising that there is no research showing the extent to which these meals serve any purpose that is aligned with the overt organizational objectives of improving negotiation outcomes. This paper’s main goal is to investigate the effectiveness of social interactions in the context of trust-building and negotiations. Since a social interaction is a complicated social process, involving communication, and other aspects, such as food and beverage intake our experiment involves teasing apart and measuring the importance of these components in order to understand how they influence economic outcomes. Methods: Participants were recruited from among the MBA students as ESC Dijon an elite business school in the Bourgogne region of France. The process was as follows: 1. Subjects were invited to participate in a wine/water tasting activity (groups are all-male or all-female) followed by some games. They were advised not to eat or drink in the hour prior to the experiment.

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