No. 218: Team Formation with Altruism

Year: 2026

Type: Working Paper

Abstract

This paper explores the strategic formation of teams within organizations with moral hazard, focusing on the impact of agents’ altruism on incentive structures. The study contrasts teams composed of agents with similar preferences with teams that integrate diverse preferences. The analysis demonstrates that, for N identical projects and 2N agents, the principal’s optimal strategy is to form antiassortative teams: pairing the most and least altruistic agents, then repeating the process with the remaining agents and so forth. This research highlights the importance of aligning agent preferences with strategic team formation to optimize organizational costs.

Publication Information

TRR 266 researchers

Vakhtang Abashidze Humboldt University of Berlin

DOI

DOI Link

Cite this article as

Abashidze, V. (2026). Team Formation with Altruism. TRR 266 Accounting for Transparency Working Paper Series No. 218. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.6094826

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Participating Institutions

TRR 266‘s main locations are Paderborn University (Coordinating University), HU Berlin, and University of Mannheim. All three locations have been centers for accounting and tax research for many years. They are joined by researchers from LMU Munich, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, Goethe University Frankfurt, University of Cologne, Leibniz University Hannover and TU Darmstadt who share the same research agenda.