Lie for me: an experiment about delegation, efficiency and morality

In both individual and organizational contexts, delegation can be used to overcome moral constraints. In our experimental setup, Principals can either report a value in a die-under-the-cup task or delegate the reporting task to an Agent with no personal stake in the outcome. We manipulate the relative efficiency of the report, with the Agent’s prospects either surpassing or falling short of the Principal’s prospect. The findings reveal that while Agents generally behave honestly, those with higher levels of prosocial attitudes are likelier to lie when assigned an inefficient lottery, presumably to avoid disappointing the Principal. Furthermore, Principals tend to misreport opportunistically and delegate only when the Agent’s prospects are more favorable.