Awards as Incentives

Non-monetary incentives in the form of awards have so far escaped the attention of economists despite their widespread use. This paper presents an experiment conducted online at IBM to assess the impact of these kinds of extrinsic incentives. Introducing a hypothetical award has statistically significant effects on stated contributions to a public good. Our design allows the estimation of the impact of different award characteristics related to, for example, how public or how valuable the award is. We illustrate these findings by providing predictions about the behavior induced by a new award at IBM.

[1]  P. Frijters,et al.  How Important is Methodology for the Estimates of the Determinants of Happiness? , 2004 .

[2]  Paul R. Milgrom,et al.  Multitask Principal–Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design , 1991 .

[3]  Richard F. Hartl,et al.  Managing the reputation of an award to motivate performance , 2005, Math. Methods Oper. Res..

[4]  Mandy Ryan,et al.  Are preferences stable? The case of health care , 2002 .

[5]  Alexander D. Stajkovic,et al.  Behavioral management and task performance in organizations: Conceptual background, meta-analysis, and test of alternative models. , 2003 .

[6]  A. Rivlin,et al.  Economic Choices , 2001 .

[7]  B. Frey,et al.  Punishment – and Beyond , 2009, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[8]  Karl-Dieter Opp,et al.  When Do Norms Emerge by Human Design and When by the Unintended Consequences of Human Action? , 2002 .

[9]  Bruno S. Frey,et al.  Giving and Receiving Awards , 2006, Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

[10]  V. Srinivasan,et al.  A CONJUNCTIVE-COMPENSATORY APPROACH TO THE SELF-EXPLICATION OF MULTIATTRIBUTED PREFERENCES* , 1988 .

[11]  Peter Wright,et al.  State-of-mind effects on the accuracy with which utility functions predict marketplace choice. , 1980 .

[12]  Victoria A. Shaffer,et al.  The Motivational Properties of Tangible Incentives , 2007 .

[13]  Lakshman Krishnamurthi,et al.  Conjoint models of family decision making , 1988 .

[14]  Jon Reiersen,et al.  Status and Incentives , 2004 .

[15]  H. Becker,et al.  The Use of Vignettes in Survey Research , 1978 .

[16]  PROMOTIONS AND INCENTIVES , 2001 .

[17]  Susanne Neckermann,et al.  Academics Appreciate Awards - A New Aspect of Incentives in Research , 2008, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[18]  C. Loch,et al.  The fight for the alpha position:: Channeling status competition in organizations , 2001 .

[19]  Geld oder Anerkennung? Zur Ökonomik der Auszeichnungen , 2010 .

[20]  A. Falk,et al.  The hidden costs of control , 2006 .

[21]  H. Glejser,et al.  Efficiency and Inefficiency in the Ranking in Competitions: the Case of the Queen Elisabeth Music Contest , 2001 .

[22]  B. Frey,et al.  A New Aspect of Incentives in Research , 2008 .

[23]  Canice Prendergast.  The Provision of Incentives in Firms , 1999 .

[24]  Arthur van Soest,et al.  Vignettes and self-reports of work disability in the United States and the Netherlands , 2007 .

[25]  R. Moffitt.  New Developments in Econometric Methods for Labor Market Analysis , 1999 .

[26]  B. Frey.  Not Just for the Money: An Economic Theory of Personal Motivation , 1998 .

[27]  A. Offer.  Between the gift and the market: the economy of regard , 1997 .

[28]  Mario Macis,et al.  Do All Material Incentives for Prosocial Activities Backfire? The Response to Cash and Non-Cash Incentives for Blood Donations , 2009, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[29]  D. Goodin.  The cambridge dictionary of statistics , 1999 .

[30]  Choosing the right pond: Human behavior and the quest for status , 1988 .

[31]  Peter Zweifel,et al.  Validity of discrete-choice experiments evidence for health risk reduction , 2007 .

[32]  B. Frey,et al.  Motivation Crowding Theory: A Survey of Empirical Evidence , 2000 .

[33]  Jordan J. Louviere,et al.  Combining sources of preference data , 1998 .

[34]  Casey Ichniowski,et al.  Beyond Incentive Pay: Insiders' Estimates of the Value of Complementary Human Resource Management Practices , 2003 .

[35]  B. Frey,et al.  Awards as Compensation , 2007 .

[36]  George A. Akerlof,et al.  Identity and the Economics of Organizations , 2005 .

[37]  M. Marmot.  The Status Syndrome: How Social Standing Affects Our Health and Longevity , 2004 .

[38]  Peter H. Rossi,et al.  SORTING OUT THE CUCKOO'S NEST: A FACTORIAL SURVEY APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF POPULAR CONCEPTIONS OF MENTAL ILLNESS , 1988 .

[39]  T. Veblen.  The Theory of the Leisure Class , 1901 .

[40]  Carol T. Kulik,et al.  Old Friends, New Faces: Motivation Research in the 1990s , 1999 .

[41]  W. Greene,et al.  计量经济分析 = Econometric analysis , 2009 .

[42]  Daniel John Zizzo,et al.  Between Utility and Cognition: The Neurobiology of Relative Position , 2002 .

[43]  M. Johannesson,et al.  Paying Respect , 2007 .

[44]  M. Spence.  Job Market Signaling , 1973 .

[45]  J. Tirole,et al.  Incentives and Prosocial Behavior , 2005 .

[46]  S. Mullainathan,et al.  Do People Mean What They Say? Implications for Subjective Survey Data , 2001 .

[47]  Peter H. Rossi,et al.  Measuring social judgments : the factorial survey approach , 1983 .

[48]  S. Markham,et al.  RECOGNIZING GOOD ATTENDANCE: A LONGITUDINAL, QUASI‐EXPERIMENTAL FIELD STUDY , 2002 .

[49]  David J. Reibstein,et al.  Conjoint Analysis Reliability: Empirical Findings , 1988 .

[50]  Joel Waldfogel,et al.  The Deadweight Loss of Christmas , 1993 .

[51]  N. Lacetera,et al.  Social Image Concerns and Pro-Social Behavior , 2008, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[52]  Peter J. Sloane,et al.  Non-pecuniary Advantages Versus Pecuniary Disadvantages; Job Satisfaction Among Male And Female Academics In Scottish Universities , 2000 .

[53]  T. Besley,et al.  Status Incentives , 2008 .

[54]  E. Fehr,et al.  The Hidden Costs and Returns of Incentives - Trust and Trustworthiness Among CEOS , 2004 .

[55]  John O. Summers,et al.  Reliability and Validity of Conjoint Analysis and Self-Explicated Weights: A Comparison , 1984 .

[56]  Lars Stole,et al.  The non-monetary nature of gifts , 2001 .

[57]  Paul Milgrom,et al.  The Firm as an Incentive System , 1994 .

[58]  Jeroen van de Ven,et al.  Discretionary rewards as a feedback mechanism , 2009, Games Econ. Behav..

[59]  Victor Ginsburgh,et al.  Expert opinion and compensation: evidence from a musical competition , 2015 .

[60]  B. Frey,et al.  Motivation Crowding Theory: A Survey of Empirical Evidence , 2000, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[61]  William Diebold,et al.  Social Limits to Growth , 1977 .

[62]  Scott A. Jeffrey,et al.  Justifiability and the Motivational Power of Tangible Noncash Incentives , 2009 .

[63]  Ayse Onculer,et al.  Status as a Valued Resource , 2001 .

[64]  E. Lazear,et al.  Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts , 1979, Journal of Political Economy.

[65]  B. Weisbrod,et al.  Toward a General Theory of Awards, or, Do Economists Need a Hall of Fame? , 1972, Journal of Political Economy.

[66]  B. Frey,et al.  Auszeichnungen: Ein vernachlässigter Anreiz , 2006 .

[67]  B. V. Praag,et al.  Ordinal and cardinal utility , 1991 .

[68]  Klaus M. Schmidt,et al.  Fairness and Incentives in a Multi-Task Principle-Agent Model , 2004 .

[69]  Susanne Neckermann,et al.  What is an Award Worth? An Econometric Assessment of the Impact of Awards on Employee Performance , 2009, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[70]  B. Frey.  Knight Fever - Towards an Economics of Awards , 2005, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[71]  Guillermina Jasso,et al.  Probing the character of norms : A factorial survey analysis of the norms of political action , 1997 .

[72]  Victor Ginsburgh,et al.  Awards, success and aesthetic quality in the arts , 2003 .

[73]  Susanne Neckermann,et al.  Awards in Economics - Towards a New Field of Inquiry , 2008, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[74]  Hans K. Hvide,et al.  Status concerns and the organization of work , 2001 .