| The proposed research investigates how third-party information determines behavior of actors in cooperation problems. Pairs of actors often meet in settings in which they have to cooperate on some common project or one has to trust the other. Examples can be found in economic exchange (buyer-supplier relations, inter-firm alliances) as well as social exchange (gift-giving, helping). Third parties can play various roles in these interactions. For example, they provide information about how one should behave in these interactions in general, they inform actors about behavior of the partner in similar interactions in the past, or they inform actors about characteristics of potential partners. Moreover, third parties can reward cooperative and sanction opportunistic behavior. In this research, I want to integrate hypotheses about different kinds of third-party effects in a unified framework. Such an integrated approach allows determining the strength of various effects under different circumstances. More specifically, I argue that uncertainty, broadly conceived, is crucial for the importance of third-party effects. E.g., if an actor knows the characteristics of a partner well but wants to engage with hirn in a new type of interactions about which the actor has no experience, he is less interested in third-party information about the partner, but more in third-party information about how to behave in such an interaction. The general research question is as follows: How do third parties affect behavior in cooperation problems depending on properties of the setting in which the cooperation problems occur? More specifically: How does uncertainty influence third-parry effects and their importance in cooperation problems? The aim of this research is to contribute to systematic knowledge about how social networks affect human behavior by integrating and extending existing theoretical and empirical insights. Understanding of such behavior is important since social networks in which cooperation problems can be solved allow for more efficient interactions among actors. This rnight provide insights in, e.g., how cooperation among colleagues or business partners can be fostered. |
