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Incentives for Prosocial Behavior: The Role of Reputations

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  • Christine L. Exley

    (Harvard Business School, Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit)

Abstract

Do monetary incentives encourage volunteering? Or, do they introduce concerns about appearing greedy and crowd out the motivation to volunteer? Since the importance of such image concerns is normally unobserved, the answer is theoretically unclear, and corresponding empirical evidence is mixed. To help counter this ambiguity, this paper proposes that the importance of image concerns - such as the desire to appear prosocial and not to appear greedy - relates to individuals' volunteer reputations. Experimental results support this possibility. Individuals with past histories of volunteering are less responsive to image concerns if their histories are public, or if their prosocial tendencies are already known. Consistent with a decreased importance of appearing prosocial, they are less likely to volunteer. Consistent with a decreased importance of not appearing greedy, they are less likely to be discouraged by public incentives.

Suggested Citation

  • Christine L. Exley, 2015. "Incentives for Prosocial Behavior: The Role of Reputations," Harvard Business School Working Papers 16-063, Harvard Business School, revised Oct 2016.
    • Handle: RePEc:hbs:wpaper:16-063
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    File URL: http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/pages/download.aspx?name=16-063.pdf
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    Cited by:

    1. James Andreoni & Marta Serra-Garcia, 2021. "The Pledging Puzzle: How Can Revocable Promises Increase Charitable Giving?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(10), pages 6198-6210, October.
    2. Christine L. Exley & Jeffrey K. Naecker, 2017. "Observability Increases the Demand for Commitment Devices," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(10), pages 3262-3267, October.
    3. Exley, Christine L. & Petrie, Ragan, 2018. "The impact of a surprise donation ask," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 152-167.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    incentives; image motivation; volunteer; prosocial behavior; reputations;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

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