A short summary of Buchholz, W. and Hattori, K. (2026) “Strategic Self-Handicapping to Induce Rival Mergers”.

Background

Firms usually try to become more competitive by expanding capacity, reaching more customers, and lowering costs. When a business closes a plant or leaves a profitable market, we tend to assume that something has gone wrong.

This paper examines theoretically whether deliberately becoming less competitive can encourage industry consolidation through rival mergers and ultimately increase a firm’s own profit.

A short summary of Hattori, K. and Yoshikawa, T. (2026) “Profit-Increasing Entry and the Low-Entry Trap under Coopetition”.

Background

A new competitor is usually unwelcome news for an existing business. More firms compete for the same customers, making it harder for each to earn a profit.

But firms sometimes help cultivate the market in which they compete. Hotels and restaurants promote a tourist destination; producers advertise a product category; businesses contribute to shared infrastructure that attracts customers. In these settings, a new entrant is both an additional rival and an additional contributor to the market’s development.

A short summary of Hattori, K. (2026) “Performance Attribution, Knowledge Transfer, and Team Formation”.

Background

Organizations rely heavily on employees learning from one another. New-hire training, on-the-job learning, mentoring, and pair work all create opportunities for knowledge to flow from more experienced or skilled workers to their coworkers.

But this learning does not happen automatically. Teaching takes time away from one’s own work. More subtly, teaching can narrow the performance gap between the person who teaches and the person who learns.

A short summary of Hattori, K. (2026) “Working Harder, Playing Safer: Mutual Concern and Risky Experimentation in Teams”.

Background

Organizations do more than place employees in teams. They invest in shared goals, cohesion, and collective incentives, all intended to make members care about one another’s outcomes. There is good reason to do so: members who care about their teammates seem likely to work hard for the team, and existing work finds that social relationships among coworkers affect workplace effort and that team incentives are more effective in more cohesive teams.

But many of the activities assigned to teams require more than diligent execution. Work is not only a matter of how much members work; it is also a matter of what they work on.

A short summary of Hattori, K. (2026) “Enforceability Reverses the Effect of Bargaining Power on Team Performance”.

Background

Teams often negotiate who does how much work. Within a team, bargaining power is rarely equal: it varies with voice, presence, seniority, or simply skill at negotiating. A stronger bargainer can reduce her own workload and shift work onto a weaker one.

Does such unequal bargaining power help or hurt team performance?

A short summary of Hattori, K. (2026) “The Sharing Trap: Duplicate Work and Coordination in Teams”.

Background

Anyone who works in a team has had the experience of discovering that a teammate has been doing the same work, without either of them knowing. The remedy is simple: say which task you intend to take on. Shared workspaces, project-management systems, and Slack are all available, and a single message reaches everyone. Yet sharing is still neglected, and duplicate work does not go away.

A short summary of Hattori, K. (2026) “The Finisher’s Paradox: Handoff Quality in Deadline-Constrained Teams”.

Background

Work in teams is often passed along. A subordinate produces material and a superior finishes it; a junior researcher drafts a section and a senior colleague turns it into a submittable paper. It seems obvious that having an able person on the receiving end, the one who completes the work, is a strength for the team. What this paper shows is that in teams working against a deadline, delivered quality can fall as the finisher grows more able.

A short summary of Hattori, K. (2026) “The Desire to Be Missed: Irreplaceability and Leadership in Teams”.

Background

People often want to be the person an organization would struggle without. Managers and mentors encourage members with exactly this message: you are indispensable to this team. And it is true that feeling one’s work matters draws out effort. What this paper shows is that the same feeling may also leave the team fragile.

A short summary of Hattori, K. (2026) “Self-Starters Are Leaders: Present-Bias Asymmetry and Collective Procrastination”, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, Kiel, Hamburg.

Some of the results in this paper appear as “Procrastination Traps and Endogenous Leadership in Teams” in Economics Letters.

Background

Procrastination is usually thought of as an individual problem. You know the task should be done. There is a deadline. Your future self would clearly be better off if you got on with it. And yet, when the moment to start actually arrives, the immediate unpleasantness looms large and the task slides to tomorrow.

A short summary of Hattori, K. (2026) “Who Disciplines the Leader? Leadership as Exposure”, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, Kiel, Hamburg.

Background

The word leadership brings to mind a leader guiding followers, or a leader monitoring how hard they work. Leaders set direction, motivate members, communicate information, supervise, and hold the team together. Leadership, on this understanding, is a device through which a leader influences other people.

This paper turns that view around. Is the leader really only on the disciplining side?