Power, bargaining, and collaboration

Collaboration is increasingly popular across academia. Collaborative work raises certain ethical questions, however. How will the fruits of collaboration be divided? How will academics divide collaborative labor? This chapter considers the following question in particular. Are there ways in which these divisions systematically disadvantage certain groups? The chapter uses evolutionary game theoretic models to address this question. First, it discusses results from O’Connor and Bruner (2015) showing that underrepresented groups in academia can be disadvantaged in collaboration and bargaining by dint of their small numbers. Second, it presents novel results exploring how the hierarchical structure of academia can lead to bargaining disadvantage. The chapter investigates models where one actor has a higher baseline of academic success, less to lose if collaboration goes south, or greater rewards for non-collaborative work. The chapter shows that in these situations, the less powerful partner can be disadvantaged in bargaining over collaboration.