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on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
| By: | Gautam Rao; Stefano DellaVigna; John List; Ulrike Malmendier |
| Abstract: | We design a model-based field experiment to estimate the nature and magnitude of workers' social references towards their employers. We hire 446 workers for a one-time task. Within worker, we vary (i) piece rates; (ii) whether the work has payoffs only for the worker, or also for the employer; and (iii) the return to the employer. We then introduce a surprise increase or decrease in pay (`gifts') from the employer. We find that workers have substantial baseline social preferences towards their employers, even in the absence of repeated-game incentives. Consistent with models of warm glow or social norms, but not of pure altruism, workers exert substantially more effort when their work is consequential to their employer, but are insensitive to the precise return to the employer. Turning to reciprocity, we find little evidence of a response to unexpected positive (or negative) gifts from the employer. Our structural estimates of the social preferences suggest that, if anything, positive reciprocity in response to monetary `gifts' may be larger than negative reciprocity. We revisit the results of previous field experiments on gift exchange using our model and derive a one-parameter expression for the implied reciprocity in these experiments. |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qsh:wpaper:396911&r=hrm |
| By: | Blasco, Andrea; Olivia S. Jung; Karim R. Lakhani |
| Abstract: | We investigate the factors driving workers? decisions to generate public goods inside an organization through a randomized solicitation of workplace improvement proposals in a medical center with 1200 employees. We find that pecuniary incentives, such as winning a prize, generate a threefold increase in participation compared to non-pecuniary incentives alone, such as prestige or recognition. Participation is also increased by a solicitation appealing to improving the workplace. However, emphasizing the patient mission of the organization led to countervailing effects on participation. Overall, these results are consistent with workers having multiple underlying motivations to contribute to public goods inside the organization consisting of a combination of pecuniary and altruistic incentives associated with the mission of the organization. |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qsh:wpaper:387246&r=hrm |
| By: | Christiane Bradler (ZEW Centre for European Economic Research, Mannheim, Germany); Susanne Neckermann (Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and ZEW Centre for European Economic Research, Mannheim, Germany); Arne Warnke (ZEW Centre for European Economic Research, Mannheim, Germany) |
| Abstract: | This paper reports the results from a large-scale laboratory experiment investigating the impact of tournament incentives and wage gifts on creativity. We find that tournaments substantially increase creative output, with no evidence for crowding out of intrinsic motivation. By comparison, wage gifts are ineffective. Additional treatments show that it is the uncertain mapping between effort and output that inhibits reciprocity. This uncertainty is prevalent in creative and other complex tasks. Our findings provide a rationale for the frequent use of tournaments when seeking to motivate creative output. |
| Keywords: | creativity; incentives; tournament; reciprocity; experiment; crowding-out |
| JEL: | C91 D03 J33 M52 |
| Date: | 2016–05–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20160035&r=hrm |
| By: | Bernd Irlenbusch; Dirk Sliwka; Julian Conrads; Rainer Rilke; Tommaso Reggiani |
| Abstract: | How to hire voluntary helpers? We shed new light on this question by reporting a field experiment in which we invited 2859 students to help at the 'ESA Europe 2012' conference. Invitation emails varied non-monetary and monetary incentives to convince subjects to offer help. Students could apply to help at the conference and, if so, also specify the working time they wanted to provide. Just asking subjects to volunteer or offering them a certificate turned out to be significantly more motivating than mentioning that the regular conference fee would be waived for helpers. By means of an online-survey experiment, we find that intrinsic motivation to help is likely to have been crowded out by mentioning the waived fee. Increasing monetary incentives by varying hourly wages of 1, 5, and 10 Euros shows positive effects on the number of applications and on the working time offered. However, when comparing these results with treatments without any monetary compensation, the number of applications could not be increased by offering money and may even be reduced. |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:feb:framed:00406&r=hrm |
| By: | Marco Cozzi (University of Victoria); Giulio Fella (Queen Mary University of London) |
| Abstract: | This paper is a quantitative, equilibrium study of the insurance role of severance pay when workers face displacement risk and markets are incomplete. A key feature of our model is that, in line with an established empirical literature, job displacement entails a persistent fall in earnings upon re-employment due to the loss of tenure. The model is solved numerically and calibrated to the US economy. In contrast to previous studies that have analyzed severance payments in the absence of persistent earning losses, we find that the welfare gains from the insurance against job displacement afforded by severance pay are sizable. |
| Keywords: | Severance payments, Incomplete markets, Welfare |
| JEL: | E24 D52 D58 J65 |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:wp795&r=hrm |
| By: | Anders Frederiksen (Aarhus University, IZA); Timothy Halliday (University of Hawaii at Manoa, University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, IZA) |
| Abstract: | “Glass ceilings†and “sticky floors†are typical explanations for the low representation of women in top executive positions, but a focus on gender differences in promotions provides only a partial explanation. We consider the life-cycle of executive employment, which allows for a full characterization of the gender composition of executive management. We establish that there are few women in executive management because they have lower levels of human capital, are underrepresented in lower-level jobs, and are less likely to be perceived as high-productivity employees. We do not find that women have uniformly unfavorable promotion and demotion probabilities. |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hae:wpaper:2015-6&r=hrm |
| By: | Epstein, Gil S. (Bar-Ilan University); Lindner Pomerantz, Renana (Bar-Ilan University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we identify two situations that can lead a firm to hire an executive who supports a corporate culture that differs from the firm's current culture. In the first case, there is similarity between the firm's culture and that of the candidate and in the second case, executives who support the firm's culture constitute a minority of available candidates. In both cases the firm prefers to hire an available candidate, rather than risk a prolonged vacancy. We show how these scenarios can lead to the eradication of unique cultures and to the perpetuation of more common cultures. |
| Keywords: | corporate culture, organizations, minority |
| JEL: | D21 D23 |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9873&r=hrm |