Organizational Maintenance and the Retention Decision in Groups

Rothenberg, Lawrence S.

doi:10.2307/1961753

Cited by 84 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 18 publications

(14 reference statements)

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“…In both papers, contrary to our paper, the decision to contribute 3 A typical seniority benefit is the practice of reserving office positions to returning members (see Moe, 1980). In the case of citizens' groups like Common Cause, where about a third of the members report that they have politicial aspirations (see Rothenberg, 1988), the value of seniority benefits is clearly related to the success of the group in its lobbying effort. is once and for all, therefore there is no heterogeneity among agents that can take an action in any one period.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Membership in citizen groups

Barbieri

Mattozzi

2009

Games and Economic Behavior

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JEL classification: C73 D71We analyze the coordination problem of agents deciding to join a group that uses membership revenues to provide a discrete public good and excludable benefits. The public good and the benefits are jointly produced, so that benefits are valued only if the group succeeds in providing the public good. With asymmetric information about the cost of provision, the static membership game admits a unique equilibrium and we characterize the optimal membership fee. We show that heterogeneity in valuations for the excludable benefits is always detrimental to the group. However, in a dynamic contest in which heterogeneity arises endogenously (returning members receive additional seniority benefits at the expense of junior members), we show that, in the ex-ante optimal contract, offering seniority benefits is beneficial for the group, despite the heterogeneity in valuations created.

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confidence: 99%

Membership in citizen groups

Barbieri

Mattozzi

2009

Games and Economic Behavior

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“…The existence of experiential search has been demonstrated previously (Rothenberg, 1988). It has been shown, for example, that most members of Common Cause claim they joined the association for very broad reasons but much more specific concerns shape their decision whether or not to stay in the group.…”

Section: Informational Assumptions: the Experiential Search Perspectivementioning

confidence: 77%

“…There is little evidence generally that income has a positive impact on Common Cause contributions. Previous analyses of the decision to stay in the group (Rothenberg, 1988) and to be an activist (Rothenberg, 1987) show that income is unimportant in the first instance and a deterrent in the second; when the retention model is rerun with a dichotomous dependent variable scored zero for those who did not report having at some time given extra money and a one for those who did, income is again discovered to be unimportant. This latter finding should be tempered by the acknowledgment that the amount of money individuals donate would ideally be the dependent variable: Income may determine whether members give $10 or $1,000.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Putting the puzzle together: Why people join public interest groups

Rothenberg

1989

Public Choice

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Why people join organizations, especially public interest groups, has been an unsolved puzzle. In this analysis, choice-based probability methods are employed to combine data from the 1980 National Election Study with comparable information about Common Cause members and to estimate models of the participation calculus that put the pieces of the puzzle together. The results demonstrate the primary importance of political interest and policy preferences for the membership choice. Citizens who are politically interested and have preferences that roughly match an organization's reputation find that associational membership has both greater benefits and lower costs for them than it does for others. Variations in the costs of communication -to the degree that they can be measured -are unimportant for the joining decision. An ability to pay is also irrelevant, regardless of educational attainment and despite members' high incomes. Organizational leaders deliberately keep the costs of membership low relative to most citizens' ability to pay; this encourages potential contributors to join in order to learn about the organization.

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“…These choices clearly relate to the internal organization of an interest group, a neglected topic in the literature (see e.g. Moe 1980, Rothenberg 1988). …”

Section: Multiple Channelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interest Group Behavior and Influence

Winden¹

2008

Readings in Public Choice and Constitutional Political Economy

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Organizational Maintenance and the Retention Decision in Groups

Cited by 84 publications

References 18 publications

Membership in citizen groups

Membership in citizen groups

Putting the puzzle together: Why people join public interest groups

Interest Group Behavior and Influence

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