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9 - Learning with the Advice of a Meddlesome Boss

from Part IV - The Value of Advice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2023

Andrew Schotter
Andrew Schotter
Affiliation:
New York University
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Summary

Consider a worker with a nosy boss who continually offers suggestions and advice. Such a meddlesome supervisor creates a problem for the worker, since he or she may not want to insult the supervisor by ignoring his advice, his or her raise may depend on pleasing him, yet he or she may know that such advice is foolish and would only decrease firm profits if followed. The question we ask in this chapter is, does such a meddlesome relationship between worker and boss interfere with the learning abilities of the worker? We find the answer is a resounding no. In fact, subjects in our laboratory experiment who have what we have called meddlesome bosses advising them actually learn better than those with bosses whose advice can be ignored and fare much better than those subjects with no laboratory bosses at all.

Keywords

decision makingworker compensationsurpise quizlearninglearn while you earnsupervision
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Chapter
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Advice, Social Learning and the Evolution of Conventions , pp. 245 - 266
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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