The reason the idea of reputation came to me, is I'm starting my third quarter in b-school and this comes with 4 classes that involve grouping into teams. It's a bit interesting to see the power plays and politics in this scenario, and I'm left to wonder how one might 'game the system' or pretend to be a real player when they are actually a academic lightweight.
The Game
Grouping into teams is nothing new for most business students, but many "hard science" students haven't had much exposure to the concept before b-school. Also in American b-schools competition is fierce and so even those students who are familiar with the politics, find the higher stakes ups the energy.
The class might ask for groups of 5. Strong students have an incentive to group up with other strong students, and weak students have a at least equal (but likely greater if they care about grades) incentive to group up with strong students. The theory is that groups with the most strong students will score the best on assignments, something that very well may not be true but under the assumption that it's generally accepted by the class, means that everyones goal is the same and so the basic principles of game theory should hold.
The Players
This is where reputation comes in. I'll briefly try to slot students into their separate 'types' and then I'll start talking about how reputation can both help and hinder the student.
The Apathetic
For whatever reason this type of student both doesn't put the time in, and doesn't want to put the time in. Maybe b-school isn't for them, whatever the case these students are quickly recognized by their group members as freeloaders and as the year progresses that word gets around. This doesn't necessarily mean they don't get into the best groups, and the politics of the group up play a big factor - I'll expand later. [on a re-read I never do, so I will now, Apathetic can transform into Unprepared]
The Unprepared
Business schools generally accept ~60% of their students from non BCOM backgrounds, and these students come in with no or very little academic background in the subject matter. Matched with a ESL status, it can be very daunting for these student to keep up to their BCOM background peers. Some have that special gift of an amazing work ethic and can compete toe to toe with those students on their second lap of the material, some don't and although their ROI on the degree is greater than the BCOM's they aren't able to lock in that high GPA. We'll somewhat unfairly call these students "The Unprepared".
The Scattered
It may be maturity, it may be a hard coded need to procrastinate, it may be a slice of genius, whatever the cause every class has the scattered student. Some of them do surprisingly well on exams and homework, after cramming and last minute all nighters; some fall apart when they time their push a bit late. I personally find this type of student the most frustrating to work with, but I do admire those who pull it off.
The Work Horse
These types of students are the ones who put their blood sweat and tears into their work. I truly wish I was one, but I burn out hours before these students really start pouring it on. The interesting thing about these students is half of them are 'dark horses' and half are well known for their work ethic. People will often think The Naturals (below) are the students with the highest grades, but in my experience they almost always trail a handful of work horses that are knocking of 4.0 gpa's every semester. The dark horses won't speak up in class, but can be often found in the library late into the evening, while the recognized - light horses?? - will be very questioning students that contribute regularly (sometimes to excess) in class discussion.
The Naturals
These students are either set up for success by being both relative hard working and coming from a BCOM background. There is a bit of grey area between this student and the successful 'Scattered' student. Although the successful scattered student is obviously 'a natural', I'll just keep the naturals in this discussion to the nutured (as opposed to by nature) kind.
The Politics
So what actually happens? From what I can tell there are three behaviors, the initiators, the receivers, and the lost. Weeks, sometimes months before the class begins the initiators will start approaching who they view to be strong students, and ask them to be group mates. Initiators seem to usually be The Unprepared, The Workhorses, and sometimes The Naturals. The receivers tend to either be Workhorses or Naturals. And here is where it gets interesting, the answer is almost always yes.
Being a receiver is a gratifying experience, everybody likes to be asked into a group, it's like getting picked first for the sports team. The trouble is receivers have a chance of being asked by an Unprepared, and it is really hard politically to say no. This cockiness can lead to a sub-optimal group allocation, but sometimes the Natural or the Workhorses get asked by a fellow Workhorse or Natural, and that is the ultimate ego boost - being asked to be on the A team, by the A team. Ironically because of the reputation effect Naturals benefit from, they have the opportunity to be recruited by students stronger than themselves (A team recruiting the B team). This phenomena creates an incentive to be a receiver for two reasons, first the ego boost, second receivers who are asked are automatically identified as either Workhorses or Naturals by both the asking team, and anyone around the person when the asking occurs. This reputation boost can create a bit of an aura for the person in the best way possible - they don't have to say a thing.
As a quick aside before we move to initiators, those not asked become quickly (either wrongly or rightly) identified as Scattered or Apathetic, a dark mark but sometime a fairly unobservable one.
So as you can probably see the Workhorses and the Naturals have a choice to make. Take the risk to become a receiver and get the reputation benefit of being on the A-Team, or the cost of either not being picked at all, or being picked, and begrudgingly accepting, by the Unprepared. As a initiator the cost is small and the reward is small - if they are a Unprepared they have the chance to group up with Workhorses or Naturals, if they are Workhorses or Naturals they have the chance to group up with other like-strength peers before being asked by a Unprepared. So there is little downside, but they 'signal' to the student body that they may be an Unprepared student (recalling that we assume only Naturals and Workhorses are recievers and initiators can be Naturals, Workhorses or Unprepareds). So they don't get a reputation boost, and depending on the information known about their abilities they may actually be mislabeled as Unprepared.
So what happens. It seems to me workhorses that have BCOM (or other team work related) backgrounds tend to choose the initiator path and keep their reputation intact by talking about their marks a bit, and making an effort to show their fellow group members that they are workhorses in hopes that the word spreads (and in time it does). By thinking ahead these students can secure some really powerful groups and if given the chance only play the game once, by grouping up with the same students in every class. Workhorses from non-teamworking backgrounds seem to be receivers mostly because they are not familiar with 'the game', and they often are picked up by the Unprepared students who can see their strength and (relative) ambivalence. Most of the Naturals seem to play the waiting game, and those with the gift of the 'silver tongue' can dodge unwanted invites with class and end up in 'power groups' (or what they perceive to be good groups at least). This can be a reputation boost, but interestingly the biggest winner seems to be the Natural who willingly accepts both A Team and B Team groups, and carries the B Team group. Although not energy efficient and likely not mark efficient it seems to be reputationally efficient, because it showcases their academic vigor, and because they end up working with a variety of people which spreads the population of 'witnesses'.
Does it matter?
Not really. Most of the marks end up on the final exam anyways, and reputation is a very surface level assessment of a person. It can be manipulated or misrepresented only when track record and third party information is unavailable (as in previous group mates, not agencies). Also the group split is far from equal, in my experience over 80% of the class could be characterized as workhorses or naturals, I have yet to work with a 'dud'.
Still the small scale political theater is fun to watch and it drives home an old point. Those that say the least about themselves (both in words and in actions -> being a initatior) have an opportunity to create an aura of excellence that surpasses their actual skills. Although overtime this difference normalizes as their true track record comes to light, it can provide some interesting opportunities and benifits in the short run. It reminds me of Lt. Spiers from The Band of Brothers, here is the quote:
- Speirs: You wanna know if they're true or not, the stories about me? Did you ever notice with stories like that, everyone says they heard it from someone who was there. Then when you ask that person, they say they heard it from someone who was there. It's nothing new, really. I bet if you went back two thousand years, you'd hear a couple centurions standing around yakkin' about how Tertius lopped off the heads of some Carthaginian prisoners.
- Lipton: Well, maybe they kept talking about it because they never heard Tertius deny it.
- Speirs: Maybe that's because Tertius knew there was some value to the men thinking he was the meanest, toughest son of a bitch in the whole Roman Legion.
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