When members of an organization share communication codes, coordination across subunits is easier. But if groups interact separately, they will each develop a specialized code. This paper asks: Can organizations shape how people interact in order to create shared communication codes? What kinds...

We develop an experimental setting where the assumptions and predictions of the garbage can model can be tested. A careful reconstruction of the original simulation model enables us to select parameters that leave room for potential variations in individual behavior. Our experimental design...

When members of an organization share communication codes, coordination across subunits is easier. But if groups interact separately, they will each develop a specialized code. This paper asks: Can organizations shape how people interact in order to create shared communication codes? What kinds...

We study strategic interaction between agents who distill the complex world around them into simpler situations. Assuming agents share the same cognitive frame, we show how the frame affects equilibrium outcomes. In one-shot and repeated interactions, the frame causes agents to be either better...

In novel environments, strategic decision-making is often premised on analogy, and recognition lies at its heart. Recognition refers to a class of cognitive processes through which a problem is interpreted associatively in terms of something that has been experienced in the past. Despite...

It has been suggested that players often produce simplified and/or misspecified mental representations of interactive decision problems (Kreps, 1990). We submit that the relational structure of players' preferences in a game induces cognitive complexity, and may be an important driver of such...

The available experimental evidence suggests that even two-person normal form games with an elementary action space present substantial degrees of cognitive difficulty. We submit that the relational structure of the players' preferences is a source of complexity of a game. We provide a formal...

When we engage in the process of division of labor, there are typically multiple alternatives, but insufficient knowledge to choose among them. Under such conditions, we propose that not all alternatives are equally likely to be pursued. In particular, when we engage in the process of division...