Collusion and Strategic Favoritism in Organizations

Fighting collusion has long been a challenge in organizations, whilst favoritism in organizations has long been attacked as one of the most important sources of workplace conflicts. This paper links the phenomena of collusion and favoritism together which seem to be irrelevant. We show that favoritism cannot benefit organizations where collusion is not a serious concern; meanwhile favoritism is not effective in dealing with well-organized collusion; however, strategic use of favoritism can bring conflicts among collusive subordinates and undermine the efficiency of collusion, therefore it is effective in fighting collusion.