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Corporate Social Responsibility in the work place - Experimental evidence on CSR from a gift-exchange game

Author

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  • Hannes Koppel

    (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena)

  • Tobias Regner

    (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena)

Abstract

We analyze the effect of investments in corporate social responsibility (CSR) on workers' motivation. In our experiment, a gift exchange game variant, CSR is captured by donating a certain share of profits to a charity. We are testing for CSR effects by varying the possible share of profits given away. Additionally, we investigate the effect of a mission match, i.e., a worker prefering the same charity the firm is actually donating to. Our results show that on average workers reciprocate investments into CSR with increased effort. A mission match does result in higher effort, but only when investment into CSR is high.

Suggested Citation

  • Hannes Koppel & Tobias Regner, 2012. "Corporate Social Responsibility in the work place - Experimental evidence on CSR from a gift-exchange game," Jena Economics Research Papers 2011-030, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    • Handle: RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2011-030
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    Cited by:

    1. Victor Hiller & Natacha Raffin, 2017. "Corporate social responsibility and workers’ motivation at the industry equilibrium," Post-Print hal-02366298, HAL.
    2. Sébastien Duchêne & Adrien Nguyen-Huu & Dimitri Dubois & Marc Willinger, 2021. "Why finance professionals hold green and brown assets? A lab-in-the-field experiment [Pourquoi investir dans le vert et le brun ? Une expérience sur des professionnels de la finance]," Working Papers hal-03285376, HAL.
    3. Koppel, Hannes & Regner, Tobias, 2019. "What drives motivated agents: The ‘right’ mission or sharing it with the principal?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    4. Mirco Tonin & Michael Vlassopoulos,, 2013. "Do Social Incentives Matter? Evidence from an Online Real Effort Experiment," Review of Environment, Energy and Economics - Re3, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, January.
    5. Charness, Gary & Cobo-Reyes, Ramón & Sánchez, Ángela, 2016. "The effect of charitable giving on workers’ performance: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 131(PA), pages 61-74.
    6. Chetan Dave & Sjur Hamre & Curtis Kephart & Alicja Reuben, 2020. "Subjects in the lab, activists in the field: public goods and punishment," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 10(3), pages 533-553, September.
    7. Mirco Tonin & Michael Vlassopoulos, 2015. "Corporate Philanthropy and Productivity: Evidence from an Online Real Effort Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(8), pages 1795-1811, August.
    8. Lea Cassar, 2014. "Job mission as a substitute for monetary incentives: experimental evidence," ECON - Working Papers 177, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    9. Karine Nyborg, 2014. "Do responsible employers attract responsible employees?," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 1-17, May.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Corporate Social Responsibility; gift-exchange game; experiment; labor market; incentives; moral hazard; principal agent;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General
    • M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility
    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects

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