Measuring non-monetary incentives using conjoint analysis

Using conjoint analysis to measure importance of non-monetary incentives to supervisors and their reporting staff at the Research, Development and Engineering Center of the U.S. Missile Command. This study is built upon the theoretical work on agency theory, citizenship behavior and psychological contracts. These theories explain the relationship between the supervisor and the subordinate and suggest how non-monetary incentives can improve such relationship. This study has identified the non-monetary incentives valued by supervisors and subordinates, measured the relative importance of these non-monetary incentives and, as part of the data collection, explored online conjoint analysis. There are three phases in the study. The first phase involves qualitative interviews with the subjects. The qualitative interviews confirm the list of attributes that have previously identified from the literature reviews. The attributes are winnowed and categorized. The second phase is the card sort. Participants are asked to group and identify exemplar from a set of attributes. The result is a final list of attributes that will represent people's needs in making them an effective employee. These attributes are then turned into job profiles that are used in the conjoint analysis. In this last phase, participants express their preferences on different job descriptions via the web. The analysis followed reveals how participants value different attributes. Results of the exploratory analysis tentatively conclude that both supervisors and supervisees value company fairness, opportunities to do high-impact work, and salary as very important. Using online conjoint analysis has been an effective data collection method for this study, however, the design of the tool needs improvement to account for inconsistency and reliability. Thesis Supervisor: Duncan Simester Title: Associate Professor of Marketing, MIT Sloan School of Management Thesis Supervisor: John R. Hauser Title: Kirin Professor of Marketing, MIT Sloan School of Management