Naturally occurring enhancements to competition for talent in teams

In a laboratory setting, we study team production of group-level public goods, where two teams compete for the resources of a common-member who can benefit from and provide effort in both teams. Intrinsically, the common-member faces divided loyalties. We examine such competition in settings in which the common-member has productive abilities equal to that of the other team members and in which he/she has greater relative potential. In the homogeneous setting, we find evidence that competition increases when the common-member must choose team membership across decision rounds, instead of sharing membership within a round. In the heterogeneous setting, we find the largest increase in team effort when the common-member has sufficient resources to match that of team members in both teams. When the common-member’s productivity increases, so his/her capabilities are equivalent to the setting where resources increase, team performance is not equally increased. Further treatments explore possible explanations for these latter findings. Key Words: public goods; experiment; divided loyalties; competition; group choice; heterogeneity