Why do people pool their resources to form firms, and why do cells join together into organisms? These are two fundamental questions in economics and biology, but they are asking about the same phenomenon: collective agency. Prior work on these questions has been disciplinarily siloed, however, preventing the progress that may come from studying biological and economic examples together. Moreover, it is necessary to think not only about the initial benefits of forming collective agents—as existing approaches do—but to also consider how these agents later cope with internal conflicts.
Here, we propose to research a) what kinds of conflicts there are in collective agents; b) whether different types of collective agents face different kinds of conflicts; c) which kinds of conflicts are most disruptive to which collective agents; and d) how these conflicts can be overcome. We will model these in both economics and biology and synthesize the answers in a unified conflict-based theory of collective agency. We will produce papers for specialized journals and a longer general manuscript, teach a related course, and host a forum for a broad audience. Overall, we look to change the discourse in the two fields and to display the power of truly interdisciplinary research.
