IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/aosoci/v98y2022ics0361368221000854.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Monetizing virtuous employees

Author

Listed:
  • Smith, Michael

Abstract

This study addresses contracting with an employee (labeled a saint) whose distaste for profit-seeking effort can be mitigated by engaging in another effort directed toward the realization of broader societal goals (i.e., sustainability). The saint is also optimistic about the efficacy of this effort. I establish conditions under which the principal maximizes expected profits by hiring a saint instead of a traditional agent. This can occur even if sustainability initiatives, not including the effect on compensation, generate negative cash flows. I extend the model to include a sustainability report used in a second period for recontracting purposes, and find that the principal can prefer an uninformative report because it may allow her to continue to extract the saint's private benefits from sustainability actions.

Suggested Citation

  • Smith, Michael, 2022. "Monetizing virtuous employees," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:aosoci:v:98:y:2022:i:c:s0361368221000854
    DOI: 10.1016/j.aos.2021.101307
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0361368221000854
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.aos.2021.101307?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. Assar Lindbeck & Sten Nyberg & Jörgen W. Weibull, 1999. "Social Norms and Economic Incentives in the Welfare State," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 1-35.
    2. Arya, Anil & Fellingham, John & Glover, Jonathan, 1997. "Teams, repeated tasks, and implicit incentives," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 7-30, May.
    3. Anil Arya & Brian Mittendorf, 2011. "The Benefits of Aggregate Performance Metrics in the Presence of Career Concerns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(8), pages 1424-1437, August.
    4. Gervais, Simon & Odean, Terrance, 2001. "Learning to be Overconfident," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(1), pages 1-27.
    5. Klayman, Joshua & Soll, Jack B. & Gonzalez-Vallejo, Claudia & Barlas, Sema, 1999. "Overconfidence: It Depends on How, What, and Whom You Ask, , , , , , , , ," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 216-247, September.
    6. Gigler, Frank & Hemmer, Thomas, 2002. "Informational costs and benefits of creating separately identifiable operating segments," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 69-90, February.
    7. David P. Baron, 2007. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Entrepreneurship," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(3), pages 683-717, September.
    8. Caroline Flammer & Jiao Luo, 2017. "Corporate social responsibility as an employee governance tool: Evidence from a quasi-experiment," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 163-183, February.
    9. Dirk Sliwka, 2007. "Trust as a Signal of a Social Norm and the Hidden Costs of Incentive Schemes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 999-1012, June.
    10. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2005. "Identity and the Economics of Organizations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 9-32, Winter.
    11. John Kennedy Lewis, 2016. "Corporate Social Responsibility/Sustainability Reporting Among the Fortune Global 250: Greenwashing or Green Supply Chain?," Eurasian Studies in Business and Economics, in: Mehmet Huseyin Bilgin & Hakan Danis (ed.), Entrepreneurship, Business and Economics - Vol. 1, edition 1, pages 347-362, Springer.
    12. Arya, Anil & Mittendorf, Brian, 2015. "Career concerns and accounting performance measures in nonprofit organizations," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 1-12.
    13. Brekke, Kjell Arne & Nyborg, Karine, 2008. "Attracting responsible employees: Green production as labor market screening," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 509-526, December.
    14. Arora, Seema & Gangopadhyay, Shubhashis, 1995. "Toward a theoretical model of voluntary overcompliance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 289-309, December.
    15. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1987. "Aggregation and Linearity in the Provision of Intertemporal Incentives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 303-328, March.
    16. Christian A. L. Hilber & Olivier Schöni, 2018. "The economic impacts of constraining home investments," CEP Discussion Papers dp1556, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    17. Alvaro Sandroni & Francesco Squintani, 2007. "Overconfidence, Insurance, and Paternalism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1994-2004, December.
    18. Paul Fischer & Steven Huddart, 2008. "Optimal Contracting with Endogenous Social Norms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1459-1475, September.
    19. Indjejikian, Raffi & Nanda, Dhananjay, 1999. "Dynamic incentives and responsibility accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 177-201, April.
    20. John S. Hughes & Li Zhang & Jai†Zheng James Xie, 2005. "Production Externalities, Congruity of Aggregate Signals, and Optimal Task Assignments," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 22(2), pages 393-408, June.
    21. Henry L. Friedman & Mirko S. Heinle, 2016. "Taste, information, and asset prices: implications for the valuation of CSR," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 740-767, September.
    22. Rafael Rob & Peter Zemsky, 2002. "Social Capital, Corporate Culture, and Incentive Intensity," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 33(2), pages 243-257, Summer.
    23. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2000. "Economics and Identity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 715-753.
    24. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1991. "Multitask Principal-Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(0), pages 24-52, Special I.
    25. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2001. "Boys will be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 261-292.
    26. Grolleau, Gilles & Mzoughi, Naoufel & Pekovic, Sanja, 2012. "Green not (only) for profit: An empirical examination of the effect of environmental-related standards on employees’ recruitment," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 74-92.
    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. Wolfgang Breuer & Jannis Bischof & Christian Hofmann & Jochen Hundsdoerfer & Hans-Ulrich Küpper & Marko Sarstedt & Philipp Schreck & Tim Weitzel & Peter Witt, 2023. "Recent developments in Business Economics," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 93(6), pages 989-1013, August.

    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. Dietrichson, Jens, 2013. "Coordination Incentives, Performance Measurement and Resource Allocation in Public Sector Organizations," Working Papers 2013:26, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    2. Dirk Sliwka, 2007. "Trust as a Signal of a Social Norm and the Hidden Costs of Incentive Schemes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 999-1012, June.
    3. Rebitzer, James B. & Taylor, Lowell J., 2011. "Extrinsic Rewards and Intrinsic Motives: Standard and Behavioral Approaches to Agency and Labor Markets," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 8, pages 701-772, Elsevier.
    4. Oindrila Dey & Swapnendu Banerjee, 2022. "Incentives, Status and Thereafter: A Critical Survey," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 11(1), pages 95-115, June.
    5. Abhijit Ramalingam & Michael T. Rauh, 2010. "The Firm as a Socialization Device," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(12), pages 2191-2206, December.
    6. Dey, Oindrila & Banerjee, Swapnendu, 2014. "Status and incentives: A critical survey," MPRA Paper 57658, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Brekke, Kjell Arne & Nyborg, Karine, 2010. "Selfish bakers, caring nurses? A model of work motivation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 75(3), pages 377-394, September.
    8. Le Maux, Benoît & Necker, Sarah & Rocaboy, Yvon, 2019. "Cheat or perish? A theory of scientific customs," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(9), pages 1-1.
    9. Markus Kitzmueller & Jay Shimshack, 2012. "Economic Perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(1), pages 51-84, March.
    10. Valasek, Justin, 2018. "Dynamic reform of public institutions: A model of motivated agents and collective reputation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 94-108.
    11. Nyborg, Karine, 2011. "I don't want to hear about it: Rational ignorance among duty-oriented consumers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 263-274, August.
    12. Donze, Jocelyn & Gunnes, Trude, 2018. "Becoming “We” instead of “I”, identity management and incentives in the workplace," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 105-120.
    13. Maria Cotofan, 2019. "Learning from Praise: Evidence from a Field Experiment with Teachers," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 19-082/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    14. 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).
    15. Brice Corgnet & Brian Gunia & Roberto Hernán González, 2021. "Harnessing the power of social incentives to curb shirking in teams," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 139-167, February.
    16. Danková, Katarína & Servátka, Maroš, 2019. "Gender robustness of overconfidence and excess entry," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 179-199.
    17. Hiller, Victor & Verdier, Thierry, 2014. "Corporate culture and identity investment in an industry equilibrium," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 93-112.
    18. Michailova, Julija, 2010. "Development of the overconfidence measurement instrument for the economic experiment," MPRA Paper 34799, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Nov 2011.
    19. Lea Cassar & Stephan Meier, 2017. "Intentions for Doing Good Matter for Doing Well: The (Negative) Signaling Value of Prosocial Incentives," NBER Working Papers 24109, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Lambert, Jérôme & Bessière, Véronique & N’Goala, Gilles, 2012. "Does expertise influence the impact of overconfidence on judgment, valuation and investment decision?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1115-1128.

    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:aosoci:v:98:y:2022:i:c:s0361368221000854. 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/aos .

    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.