Dundee Discussion Papers in Economics 243: Non-cooperative incentives to share knowledge in competitive environments

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    Abstract

    In this paper we study a model where non-cooperative agents
    may exchange knowledge in a competitive environment. As a po-
    tential factor that could induce the knowledge disclosure between
    humans we consider the timing of the moves of players. We de-
    velop a simple model of a multistage game in which there are only
    three players and competition takes place only within two stages.
    Players can share their private knowledge with their opponents
    and the knowledge is modelled as in‡uencing their marginal cost
    of e¤ort. We identify two main mechanisms that work towards
    knowledge disclosure. One of them is that before the actual com-
    petition starts, the stronger player of the …rst stage of a game
    may have desire to share his knowledge with the "observer", be-
    cause this reduces the valuation of the prize of the weaker player
    of that stage and as a result his e¤ort level and probability of
    winning in a …ght. Another mechanism is that the "observer"
    may have sometimes desire to share knowledge with the weaker
    player of the …rst stage, because in this way, by increasing his
    probability of winning in that stage, he decreases the probabil-
    ity of winning of the stronger player. As a result, in the second
    stage the "observer" may have greater chances to meet the weaker
    player rather than the stronger one.
    Original languageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Dundee
    Publication statusPublished - 2010

    Publication series

    NameDundee Discussion Papers in Economics
    PublisherUniversity of Dundee
    No.243
    ISSN (Print)1473-236X

    Keywords

    • Knowledge sharing
    • Strategic knowledge disclosure
    • Multistage contest game
    • Non-cooperative games

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