A worker's group selection problem

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the behavior of a worker within an organization. There are two groups inside the firm that develop their work in different ways (sharing different codes). The worker will choose to converge to one of those groups, through an investment in learning the correspondent languages and skills. Design/methodology/approach – The convergence process is analyzed under an optimality setup. Also, the choice among investment alternatives is addressed. Findings – The framework allows the determination of steady state points for both investment alternatives; it is not optimal to converge to a full identification with one group, given that the worker benefits from the proximity to both groups, and therefore, the steady state is found to be an intermediate point somewhere in between the groups’ locations. Under a discrete choice setup, where adaptation and entropy are considered, one observes that the least likely investment process might be chosen (there is a positive probability associated with such an option). Originality/value – The paper considers a firm where two groups share different codes and cultures. It shows that the groups develop activities that are useful for the organization and that give rise to individual rewards.