The ability of teams to self-organize and engage in spontaneous collaboration is crucial to 21st-century organizations. The large extent of nonroutine activities in such organizations hampers the effectiveness of traditional management instruments, such as monitoring effort and performance levels and exercising fiat — resulting in increasingly important self-organized collaboration. To explain how such collaboration is possible, we suggest a refinement of the psychological assumptions underpinning influential theories of the firm — specifically, concerning how people reason. We juxtapose Nash reasoning (the mode of reasoning underpinning organizational economic theories of the firm) with virtual bargaining (a more collaborative mode of reasoning drawing on recent research in cognitive science). Virtual bargaining enables individuals to establish, maintain, and abide by tacit “social contracts” of their team and organization — the (often tacit) norms, rules, roles, and responsibilities governing how employees should behave (irrespective of their personal objectives). Thus, virtual bargaining helps individuals mitigate challenges of team production, such as shirking and hold-up, in a self-organizing and self-enforcing way. We analyze the conditions under which virtual bargaining leads individuals to coordinate on enhanced effort levels in organizationally relevant settings. We outline avenues for empirically testing virtual bargaining in organizations and discuss conceptual implications.

中文翻译：

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缩影的社会契约：虚拟讨价还价如何支持团队生产

团队自组织和参与自发协作的能力对于 21 世纪的组织至关重要。此类组织中大量非常规活动阻碍了传统管理工具的有效性，例如监控努力和绩效水平以及行使法令——导致自组织协作变得越来越重要。为了解释这种合作是如何可能的，我们建议对支撑公司有影响力的理论的心理假设进行改进——特别是关于人们如何推理的假设。我们将纳什推理（支撑公司组织经济理论的推理模式）与虚拟讨价还价（一种基于认知科学最新研究的更具协作性的推理模式）并列。虚拟谈判使个人能够建立，维护并遵守其团队和组织的默认“社会契约”——（通常是默认的）规范、规则、角色和责任，这些规范、规则、角色和责任决定了员工的行为方式（无论他们的个人目标如何）。因此，虚拟讨价还价帮助个人以自组织和自执行的方式缓解团队生产的挑战，例如推卸责任和拖延。我们分析了虚拟讨价还价导致个人在组织相关环境中协调提高努力水平的条件。我们概述了在组织中对虚拟讨价还价进行实证测试的途径，并讨论了概念上的含义。以及管理员工行为方式的责任（无论他们的个人目标如何）。因此，虚拟讨价还价帮助个人以自组织和自执行的方式缓解团队生产的挑战，例如推卸责任和拖延。我们分析了虚拟讨价还价导致个人在组织相关环境中协调提高努力水平的条件。我们概述了在组织中对虚拟讨价还价进行实证测试的途径，并讨论了概念上的含义。以及管理员工行为方式的责任（无论他们的个人目标如何）。因此，虚拟讨价还价帮助个人以自组织和自执行的方式缓解团队生产的挑战，例如推卸责任和拖延。我们分析了虚拟讨价还价导致个人在组织相关环境中协调提高努力水平的条件。我们概述了在组织中对虚拟讨价还价进行实证测试的途径，并讨论了概念上的含义。