摘要: Many knowledge-intensive projects, such as new product and software development, require groups of team members to work jointly. The success of such projects depends not only on the quality of the work completed, but also on the effectiveness of team member coordination. In practice, firms may employ flat team structures that assign all team members similar roles and responsibilities, or they may opt for hierarchical team structures that cast team members in different roles. This research addresses the question of which of these team structures leads to higher team performance. We develop game-theoretic models to capture team members’ choices of coordinating and contributing efforts in flat and hierarchical team structures. We show that a flat team structure outperforms a hierarchical team structure when the size of the team is small or when the project is modular; otherwise, a hierarchical structure fosters …