IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tse/wpaper/126939.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Motivating Public Sector Employees: Public Good Contributions in Addis Ababa Water and Sewerage Authority

Author

Listed:
  • Miquel-Florensa, Josepa
  • Joseph, George

Abstract

We present a lab-in-the-field experiment with employees of the Addis Ababa Water and Sanitation Authority with the aim to understand how to improve coordination and collaboration in their daily crew work. Participants play a series of public good games under different rules: standard game, with identifiable set of partners, game with threshold, and game with a randomly selected anonymous leader with the power to punish. We show that a common goal, in the form of a threshold to be attained for the group success, is significantly more effetive than a potentially punishing leader to increase individual effort and ultimately group outcomes. This result advocates for the introduction of team goals as coordination and motivation devices in settings where tasks are performed by groups and are subject to free-riding and coordination challenges.

Suggested Citation

  • Miquel-Florensa, Josepa & Joseph, George, 2022. "Motivating Public Sector Employees: Public Good Contributions in Addis Ababa Water and Sewerage Authority," TSE Working Papers 22-1336, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    • Handle: RePEc:tse:wpaper:126939
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/TSE/documents/doc/wp/2022/wp_tse_1336.pdf
    File Function: Full Text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Giovanna d’Adda & Donja Darai & Nicola Pavanini & Roberto A. Weber, 2017. "Do Leaders Affect Ethical Conduct?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(6), pages 1177-1213.
    2. Gary Charness & Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 817-869.
    3. Isaac Mbiti & Danila Serra, 2022. "Health workers’ behavior, patient reporting and reputational concerns: lab-in-the-field experimental evidence from Kenya," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(2), pages 514-556, April.
    4. Marx, Leslie M. & Squintani, Francesco, 2009. "Individual accountability in teams," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 260-273, October.
    5. Alex Gershkov & Eyal Winter, 2015. "Formal versus Informal Monitoring in Teams," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 27-44, May.
    6. Nava Ashraf & Oriana Bandiera & Edward Davenport & Scott S. Lee, 2020. "Losing Prosociality in the Quest for Talent? Sorting, Selection, and Productivity in the Delivery of Public Services," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(5), pages 1355-1394, May.
    7. Ashraf, Nava & Bandiera, Oriana & Jack, B. Kelsey, 2014. "No margin, no mission? A field experiment on incentives for public service delivery," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 1-17.
    8. Bengt Holmstrom, 1982. "Moral Hazard in Teams," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 324-340, Autumn.
    9. Barton H. Hamilton & Jack A. Nickerson & Hideo Owan, 2003. "Team Incentives and Worker Heterogeneity: An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Teams on Productivity and Participation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(3), pages 465-497, June.
    10. Jack, B. Kelsey & Recalde, María P., 2015. "Leadership and the voluntary provision of public goods: Field evidence from Bolivia," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 80-93.
    11. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List, 2007. "What Do Laboratory Experiments Measuring Social Preferences Reveal About the Real World?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 153-174, Spring.
    12. Michael Kosfeld & Devesh Rustagi, 2015. "Leader Punishment and Cooperation in Groups: Experimental Field Evidence from Commons Management in Ethiopia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(2), pages 747-783, February.
    13. Marie Claire Villeval, 2020. "Public goods, norms and cooperation," Post-Print halshs-01934515, HAL.
    14. Samuel Bowles & Sandra Polania-Reyes, 2012. "Economic Incentives and Social Preferences: Substitutes or Complements?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(2), pages 368-425, June.
    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. Mantilla, Cesar & Gelvez Ferreira, Juan David Gelvez & Nieto, Maria Paula, 2022. "Costly Norm Enforcement through Sanctions and Rewards: An Experiment with Colombian Future Police Officers," OSF Preprints aebxy, Center for Open Science.

    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. Marvin Deversi & Lisa Spantig, 2023. "Incentive and Signaling Effects of Bonus Payments: An Experiment in a Company," CESifo Working Paper Series 10302, CESifo.
    2. Silverman, Dan & Slemrod, Joel & Uler, Neslihan, 2014. "Distinguishing the role of authority “in” and authority “to”," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 32-42.
    3. Prasenjit Banerjee & Vegard Iversen & Sandip Mitra & Antonio Nicolò & Kunal Sen, 2018. "Politicians and Their Promises in an Uncertain World: Evidence from a Lab-in-the-Field Experiment in India," Economics Discussion Paper Series 1806, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    4. Hélia Marreiros, 2019. "Identity, Distribution Rules and Productivity in Heterogeneous Teams: An experiment," Working Papers de Economia (Economics Working Papers) 02, Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
    5. Philip Babcock & Kelly Bedard & Gary Charness & John Hartman & Heather Royer, 2015. "Letting Down The Team? Social Effects Of Team Incentives," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 13(5), pages 841-870, October.
    6. Carpenter, Jeffrey & Dolifka, David, 2017. "Exploitation aversion: When financial incentives fail to motivate agents," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 213-224.
    7. Deversi, Marvin & Kocher, Martin G. & Schwieren, Christiane, 2020. "Cooperation in a Company: A Large-Scale Experiment," IHS Working Paper Series 15, Institute for Advanced Studies.
    8. 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.
    9. Li, Lingfang (Ivy) & Wu, Yuting & Zhu, Xun & Chu, Rongwei & Hung, Iris, 2022. "Job Changing Frequency and Experimental Decisions: A Field Study of Migrant Workers in the Manufacturing Industry," MPRA Paper 115472, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Stephen V. Burks & Daniele Nosenzo & Jon Anderson & Matthew Bombyk & Derek Ganzhorn & Lorenz Goette & Aldo Rustichini, 2015. "Lab Measures of Other-Regarding Preferences Can Predict Some Related on-the-Job Behavior: Evidence from a Large Scale Field Experiment," Discussion Papers 2015-21, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    11. Molle, Mana Komai & Grossman, Philip J. & Kulas, John T. & Lo, Siu Pong, 2023. "Does a leader's self-assessed integrity matter?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    12. Juan I Block & Rohan Dutta & David K Levine, 2021. "Leaders and Social Norms: On the Emergence of Consensus or Conflict," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000001758, David K. Levine.
    13. Delavallade, Clara, 2021. "Motivating teams: Private feedback and public recognition at work," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    14. repec:bla:annpce:v:89:y:2018:i:1:p:157-174 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Aflagah, Kodjo & Bernard, Tanguy & Viceisza, Angelino, 2022. "Cheap talk and coordination in the lab and in the field: Collective commercialization in Senegal," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    16. Sabrina Teyssier, 2007. "Optimal Group Incentives with Social Preferences and Self-Selection," Working Papers 0710, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    17. Masaki Iwasaki, 2023. "Social preferences and well-being: theory and evidence," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-13, December.
    18. Roi Zultan & Eva-Maria Steiger, 2011. "See No Evil: Information Chains and Reciprocity in Teams," Working Papers 1108, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    19. Goto, Jun & Sawada, Yasuyuki & Aida, Takeshi & Aoyagi, Keitaro, 2015. "Incentives and Social Preferences: Experimental Evidence from a Seemingly Inefficienct Traditional Labor Contract," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211687, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    20. Steiger, Eva-Maria & Zultan, Ro'i, 2014. "See no evil: Information chains and reciprocity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 1-12.
    21. Meriggi, Niccoló F. & Bulte, Erwin, 2018. "Leader and villager behavior: Experimental evidence from Cameroon," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 324-332.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J45 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Public Sector Labor Markets
    • M50 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - General
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:tse:wpaper:126939. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tsetofr.html .

    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.