Incentivizing Information Exchange Within Groups: The Role of Voting Protocols in U.S. Food and Drug Administration Advisory Committees
中文摘要
复杂而重要的决策往往是在专家委员会的建议下作出的。但委员会的"议事规则"如何影响个人讨论的方式、投票的方式,并最终影响其集体建议的质量?我们汇编了美国食品药品监督管理局顾问委员会会议的逐字记录,研究了2007年从序贯投票程序转为同时投票程序如何改变了讨论、信息交流和决策。与以往研究结果一致,我们表明,与序贯投票规则相比,同时投票降低了意见一致投票的可能性。重要的是,我们提供了新的证据,表明这种一致性下降的大部分是由讨论模式的变化所中介的——具体而言,是由讨论中出现的信息多样性增加所中介的。我们还发现了行为与语言变化的证据,这些证据支持我们的理论,即投票规则改变了成员相互获取更多样化信息的激励:在同时投票下,成员在发言时间上表现出更大的平等性,相互提出的问题比例更高,并采用更正面的、更真实的、在展现地位与自信方面更平等的语言。最后,我们表明,同时投票下的建议更可能准确,因为被推荐和批准的药物较少遇到与安全性相关的上市后事件。总之,投票规则影响个人参与充分讨论的激励,从而显著改善个人之间信息交流的方式,并改善专家组形成共同建议的过程。本文由创业与创新领域编辑Sridhar Tayur接收。补充材料:在线附录和数据文件可在 https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.03649 获取。
Abstract
Complex and important decisions are often made with advice from a committee of experts. But how do a committee’s “rules of engagement” affect the way individuals discuss, how they vote, and ultimately the quality of their collective recommendation? Compiling verbatim transcripts from U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory committee meetings, we study how a 2007 switch from sequential to simultaneous voting procedures changed discussions, information exchange, and decision making. Consistent with past findings, we show that, compared with a sequential voting protocol, simultaneous voting led to a reduction in the likelihood of unanimous votes. Importantly, we show novel evidence that the majority of this reduction in unanimity was mediated by changes in discussion patterns—specifically, by the increased diversity of information surfaced during discussions. We also find evidence of behavioral and linguistic changes that support our theory that voting protocols changed the incentives for members to elicit more diverse information from each other: under simultaneous voting, members exhibited greater equality in talking time, directed a greater proportion of questions to each other, and adopted language that was more positive, authentic, and equal in projecting status and confidence. Finally, we show that recommendations under simultaneous voting were more likely to be accurate, as drugs recommended and approved were less likely to encounter safety-related postmarket events. In sum, voting protocols affect the incentives for individuals to engage in robust discussions, leading to marked improvements in how information is exchanged between individuals, and in the process by which groups of experts arrive at joint recommendations. This paper was accepted by Sridhar Tayur, entrepreneurship and innovation. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.03649 .