The magic of the personal touch: Field experimental evidence on money appreciation as gifts

Christiane Bradler and Susanne Neckermann

No 16-043, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: This paper makes use of two field experiments to explore individual effort responses to gifts. We extend the literature by looking at nonfinancial gifts and gifts that combine financial and nonfinancial elements with or without adding a 'personal touch.' We find that non-pecuniary gifts that signal worker appreciation induce reciprocity. Most importantly, we find that there are interaction effects between money and appreciation. While money and appreciation are individually effective, they only work well together when they are combined with a personal touch. This points to the importance of interpersonal elements in gift giving and has important implications for how to effectively elicit worker effort.

Keywords: gift exchange; reciprocity; employee performance; pro-social behavior; gratitude; personal touch; field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 M52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp and nep-hrm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:16043

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