IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joepsy/v70y2019icp52-66.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do fixed payments affect effort? Examining relative thinking in mixed compensation schemes

Author

Listed:
  • Azar, Ofer H.

Abstract

Several earlier studies have shown that people exhibit “relative thinking”: they consider relative price differences even when only absolute price differences are relevant. The article examines whether relative thinking exists when people face mixed compensation schemes that include both fixed and pay-for-performance components. Such compensation schemes are prevalent in many occupations (e.g., salespeople and managers) and therefore are an important practical issue. Surprisingly, the ratio between the pay-for-performance and the fixed compensation does not affect effort, meaning that no relative thinking is found. Another experiment shows that this is not due to reciprocity that cancels out relative thinking. In a third experiment subjects make similar decisions without incentives and the results suggest that the different context (compensation schemes instead of price comparisons) and not the introduction of financial incentives (which were not used in previous studies) is the reason that relative thinking disappears. The results have implications for designing incentive schemes in firms and for designing experiments.

Suggested Citation

  • Azar, Ofer H., 2019. "Do fixed payments affect effort? Examining relative thinking in mixed compensation schemes," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 52-66.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:70:y:2019:i:c:p:52-66
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2018.10.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487017302738
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.joep.2018.10.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2000. "Fairness and Retaliation: The Economics of Reciprocity," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 159-181, Summer.
    2. Azar, Ofer H., 2008. "The effect of relative thinking on firm strategy and market outcomes: A location differentiation model with endogenous transportation costs," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 684-697, November.
    3. Armin Falk & Andrea Ichino, 2006. "Clean Evidence on Peer Effects," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(1), pages 39-58, January.
    4. Gary Charness & Guillaume R. Frechette & John H. Kagel, 2004. "How Robust is Laboratory Gift Exchange?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 7(2), pages 189-205, June.
    5. Frisch, Deborah, 1993. "Reasons for Framing Effects," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 399-429, April.
    6. Azar, Ofer H., 2011. "Do people think about absolute or relative price differences when choosing between substitute goods?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 450-457, June.
    7. Azar, Ofer H., 2007. "Relative thinking theory," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 1-14, February.
    8. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2000. "Fairness and Retaliation," International Economic Association Series, in: L.-A. Gérard-Varet & S.-C. Kolm & J. Mercier Ythier (ed.), The Economics of Reciprocity, Giving and Altruism, chapter 7, pages 153-173, Palgrave Macmillan.
    9. Dan Ariely & Uri Gneezy & George Loewenstein & Nina Mazar, 2009. "Large Stakes and Big Mistakes," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(2), pages 451-469.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Buser, Thomas & Grimalda, Gianluca & Putterman, Louis & van der Weele, Joël, 2020. "Overconfidence and gender gaps in redistributive preferences: Cross-Country experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 267-286.
    2. Feltovich, Nick, 2019. "Is earned bargaining power more fully exploited?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 152-180.
    3. Dilmaghani, Maryam, 2022. "Chess girls don’t cry: Gender composition of games and effort in competitions among the super-elite," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bogliacino, Francesco & Grimalda, Gianluca & Pipke, David, 2021. "Kind or contented? An investigation of the gift exchange hypothesis in a natural field experiment in Colombia," OSF Preprints xmjaq, Center for Open Science.
    2. Fahr, René, 2006. "The Wage Effects of Social Norms: Evidence of Deviations from Peers’ Body-Mass in Europe," IZA Discussion Papers 2323, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Simon Gächter & Daniele Nosenzo & Martin Sefton, 2012. "The Impact of Social Comparisons on Reciprocity," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(4), pages 1346-1367, December.
    4. John A. List, 2006. "The Behavioralist Meets the Market: Measuring Social Preferences and Reputation Effects in Actual Transactions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(1), pages 1-37, February.
    5. Charness, Gary & Kuhn, Peter, 2011. "Lab Labor: What Can Labor Economists Learn from the Lab?," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 3, pages 229-330, Elsevier.
    6. Emanuela Lezzi & Piers Fleming & Daniel John Zizzo, 2015. "Does it matter which effort task you use? A comparison of four effort tasks when agents compete for a prize," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 15-05, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    7. Dohmen, Thomas, 2014. "Behavioral labor economics: Advances and future directions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 71-85.
    8. Carin van der Cruijsen & Joris Knoben, 2018. "Ctrl+C Ctrl+pay: Do people mirror payment behaviour of their peers?," DNB Working Papers 611, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    9. Lembregts, Christophe & Pandelaere, Mario, 2014. ""A 20% income increase for everyone?": The effect of relative increases in income on perceived income inequality," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 37-47.
    10. Azar, Ofer H., 2009. "Do consumers make too much effort to save on cheap items and too little to save on expensive items? experimental results and implications for business strategy," MPRA Paper 20962, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Bradler, Christiane & Neckermann, Susanne & Warnke, Arne Jonas, 2016. "Incentivizing creativity: A large-scale experiment with tournaments and gifts," ZEW Discussion Papers 16-040, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    12. Azar, Ofer H., 2011. "Do people think about absolute or relative price differences when choosing between substitute goods?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 450-457, June.
    13. Simone Haeckl & Rupert Sausgruber & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2018. "Work Motivation and Teams," Discussion Papers 18-08, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    14. Falk Armin & Kosfeld Michael, 2012. "It's all about Connections: Evidence on Network Formation," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(3), pages 1-36, September.
    15. Pingle, Mark & Mitchell, Mike, 2002. "What motivates positional concerns for income?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 127-148, February.
    16. Erin L. Krupka & Roberto A. Weber, 2013. "Identifying Social Norms Using Coordination Games: Why Does Dictator Game Sharing Vary?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 495-524, June.
    17. Chrysanthos Dellarocas & Charles A. Wood, 2008. "The Sound of Silence in Online Feedback: Estimating Trading Risks in the Presence of Reporting Bias," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(3), pages 460-476, March.
    18. Lauren Cohen & Andrea Frazzini & Christopher J. Malloy, 2012. "Hiring Cheerleaders: Board Appointments of "Independent" Directors," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(6), pages 1039-1058, June.
    19. Jean-Marc Bourgeon & José de Sousa & Alexis Noir-Luhalwe, 2022. "Social Distancing and Risk Taking: Evidence from a Team Game Show [Distanciation sociale et prise de risque : Les résultats d'un jeu d'équipe]," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03792423, HAL.
    20. Basov, S., 2001. "An Evolutionary Model of Reciprocity," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 812, The University of Melbourne.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:70:y:2019:i:c:p:52-66. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/joep .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.