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Shirking and Motivations in Firms: Survey Evidence on Worker Attitudes

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  • Lanse Minkler

    (University of Connecticut)

Abstract

In an extensive national survey, 82.7% of the respondents report that they are very likely to keep an agreement to work hard if they agreed to, even if it was almost impossible for their employer to monitor them. Based on mean responses, the rank order of motivations in descending importance is: moral, intrinsic, peer-pressure, and positive incentives. Respondents also report that fairness considerations are important and that they are especially likely to keep agreements to do a good job with honest employers. Logit analysis indicates that increases in moral and intrinsic motivations increase the likelihood of keeping agreements to provide effort. The evidence suggests that we need to re-examine a foundational assumption underlying the theory of the firm.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by University of Connecticut, Department of Economics in its series Working papers with number 2002-40.

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Length: 29 pages
Date of creation: Sep 2002
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:uct:uconnp:2002-40

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Keywords: Theory of firm; shirking; incentives; moral motivations; intrinsic motivations; fairness; attitudes.;

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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Pierre Koning & J. Vyrastekova & S. Onderstal, 2006. "Team incentives in public organisations; an experimental study," CPB Discussion Paper 60, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
  2. Dittrich, Dennis & Kocher, Martin, 2006. "Monitoring and Pay: An Experiment on Employee under Endogenous Supervision," CEPR Discussion Papers 5962, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  3. Dickinson, David & Villeval, Marie-Claire, 2008. "Does monitoring decrease work effort?: The complementarity between agency and crowding-out theories," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 56-76, May.
  4. Dur, Robert & Non, Arjan & Roelfsema, Hein, 2010. "Reciprocity and incentive pay in the workplace," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 676-686, August.
  5. Maurizio Pugno & Sara Depedri, 2009. "Job performance and job satisfaction: an integrated survey," Department of Economics Working Papers 0904, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
  6. Basu, Kaushik, 2006. "Identity, Trust and Altruism: Sociological Clues to Economic Development," Working Papers 06-05, Cornell University, Center for Analytic Economics.
  7. Dennis Dittrich & Martin G. Kocher, 2006. "Monitoring and Pay: An Experiment on Employee Performance under Endogenous Supervision," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 06-098/1, Tinbergen Institute.
  8. Kaushik Basu, 2007. "Identity and altruism: The Moral basis of prosperity and oppression," Indian Statistical Institute, Planning Unit, New Delhi Discussion Papers 08-08, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi, India.
  9. Robert Dur & Arjan Non & Hein Roelfsema, 2008. "Reciprocity and Incentive Pay in the Workplace," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-080/1, Tinbergen Institute.
  10. Dittrich, Dennis A. V. & Kocher, Martin G., 2011. "Monitoring and Pay: An Experiment on Employee Performance under Endogenous Supervision," Discussion Papers in Economics 12222, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
  11. Borck, Rainald & Frank, Bjorn & Robledo, Julio R., 2006. "An empirical analysis of voluntary payments for information goods on the Internet," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 229-239, June.
  12. Martin, Pardupa, 2007. "Cooperation or rivalry? Employee’s effort and appropriate knowledge distribution as key elements for maximizing the profit of the firm," MPRA Paper 26428, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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