Abstract
Despite the prevalence of non-routine analytical team tasks in modern economies, little is known about how incentives influence performance in these tasks. In a field experiment with more than 3000 participants, we document a positive effect of bonus incentives on the probability of completion of such a task. Bonus incentives increase performance due to the reward rather than the reference point (performance threshold) they provide. The framing of bonuses (as gains or losses) plays a minor role. Incentives improve performance also in an additional sample of presumably less motivated workers. However, incentives reduce these workers' willingness to "explore" original solutions.
Item Type: | Paper |
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Keywords: | team work; bonus; incentives; loss; gain; non-routine; exploration |
Faculties: | Economics > Collaborative Research Center Transregio "Rationality and Competition" |
Subjects: | 300 Social sciences > 330 Economics |
JEL Classification: | C92, C93, J33, D03, M52 |
URN: | urn:nbn:de:bvb:19-epub-58083-7 |
Language: | English |
Item ID: | 58083 |
Date Deposited: | 27. Sep 2018 13:57 |
Last Modified: | 04. Nov 2020 13:37 |