IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/kud/kuiedp/1808.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Work Motivation and Teams

Author

Listed:
  • Simone Haeckl

    (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business)

  • Rupert Sausgruber

    (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business)

  • Jean-Robert Tyran

    (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen)

Abstract

We provide a new measure of work motivation and show that motivation shapes the effects of team incentives and observation by peers on performance. In particular, we measure motivation to work hard as the deviation from the money-maximizing benchmark in a real-effort experiment. While we find that average output increases in response to team incentives and observation, we find that highly motivated workers do not respond. The reason is that highly motivated workers already work hard and increasing effort even further is very costly to them.

Suggested Citation

  • Simone Haeckl & Rupert Sausgruber & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2018. "Work Motivation and Teams," Discussion Papers 18-08, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:kud:kuiedp:1808
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.economics.ku.dk/research/publications/wp/dp_2018/papers/1808.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2000. "Fairness and Retaliation: The Economics of Reciprocity," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 159-181, Summer.
    2. Alwine Mohnen & Kathrin Pokorny & Dirk Sliwka, 2008. "Transparency, Inequity Aversion, and the Dynamics of Peer Pressure in Teams: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(4), pages 693-720, October.
    3. Johannes Abeler & Armin Falk & Lorenz Goette & David Huffman, 2011. "Reference Points and Effort Provision," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 470-492, April.
    4. Alexandre Mas & Enrico Moretti, 2009. "Peers at Work," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 112-145, March.
    5. Reuben, Ernesto & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2010. "Everyone is a winner: Promoting cooperation through all-can-win intergroup competition," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 25-35, March.
    6. Balafoutas, Loukas & Kocher, Martin G. & Putterman, Louis & Sutter, Matthias, 2013. "Equality, equity and incentives: An experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 32-51.
    7. Ben Greiner, 2015. "Subject pool recruitment procedures: organizing experiments with ORSEE," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 114-125, July.
    8. Rosaz, Julie & Slonim, Robert & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2016. "Quitting and peer effects at work," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 55-67.
    9. Bellemare, Charles & Lepage, Patrick & Shearer, Bruce, 2010. "Peer pressure, incentives, and gender: An experimental analysis of motivation in the workplace," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 276-283, January.
    10. Uri Gneezy & Stephan Meier & Pedro Rey-Biel, 2011. "When and Why Incentives (Don't) Work to Modify Behavior," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(4), pages 191-210, Fall.
    11. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk, 2011. "Performance Pay and Multidimensional Sorting: Productivity, Preferences, and Gender," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 556-590, April.
    12. Hoppe, Eva I. & Kusterer, David J., 2011. "Behavioral biases and cognitive reflection," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 97-100, February.
    13. Gary Charness & David Masclet & Marie Claire Villeval, 2014. "The Dark Side of Competition for Status," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(1), pages 38-55, January.
    14. Oriana Bandiera & Iwan Barankay & Imran Rasul, 2013. "Team Incentives: Evidence From A Firm Level Experiment," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(5), pages 1079-1114, October.
    15. Eriksson, Tor & Poulsen, Anders & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2009. "Feedback and incentives: Experimental evidence," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 679-688, December.
    16. Cherry, Todd L. & Kroll, Stephan & Shogren, Jason F., 2005. "The impact of endowment heterogeneity and origin on public good contributions: evidence from the lab," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 357-365, July.
    17. Katharina M. Eckartz, 2014. "Task enjoyment and opportunity costs in the lab - the effect of financial incentives on performance in real effort tasks," Jena Economics Research Papers 2014-005, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    18. van Dijk, Frans & Sonnemans, Joep & van Winden, Frans, 2001. "Incentive systems in a real effort experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 187-214, February.
    19. Yan Chen & F. Maxwell Harper & Joseph Konstan & Sherry Xin Li, 2010. "Social Comparisons and Contributions to Online Communities: A Field Experiment on MovieLens," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1358-1398, September.
    20. Joseph N. Luchman, 2013. "DOMIN: Stata module to conduct dominance analysis," Statistical Software Components S457629, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 16 Aug 2024.
    21. Georganas, Sotiris & Tonin, Mirco & Vlassopoulos, Michael, 2015. "Peer pressure and productivity: The role of observing and being observed," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 223-232.
    22. Tran, Anh & Zeckhauser, Richard, 2012. "Rank as an inherent incentive: Evidence from a field experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(9-10), pages 645-650.
    23. Corgnet, Brice & Hernan-Gonzalez, Roberto & Rassenti, Stephen, 2015. "Peer Pressure and Moral Hazard in Teams: Experimental Evidence," Review of Behavioral Economics, now publishers, vol. 2(4), pages 379-403, December.
    24. Simon Gächter & Lingbo Huang & Martin Sefton, 2016. "Combining “real effort” with induced effort costs: the ball-catching task," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(4), pages 687-712, December.
    25. Sausgruber, Rupert & Sonntag, Axel & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2021. "Disincentives from redistribution: evidence on a dividend of democracy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    26. Cooper, David J. & Saral, Krista Jabs, 2013. "Entrepreneurship and team participation: An experimental study," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 126-140.
    27. Armin Falk & Andrea Ichino, 2006. "Clean Evidence on Peer Effects," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(1), pages 39-58, January.
    28. Nalbantian, Haig R & Schotter, Andrew, 1997. "Productivity under Group Incentives: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 314-341, June.
    29. Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2007. "Do Women Shy Away From Competition? Do Men Compete Too Much?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1067-1101.
    30. Oriana Bandiera & Iwan Barankay & Imran Rasul, 2010. "Social Incentives in the Workplace," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(2), pages 417-458.
    31. Carmit Segal, 2012. "Working When No One Is Watching: Motivation, Test Scores, and Economic Success," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(8), pages 1438-1457, August.
    32. 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.
    33. Kessler, Judd B. & Norton, Michael I., 2016. "Tax aversion in labor supply," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 15-28.
    34. Brice Corgnet & Roberto Hernán-González & Eric Schniter, 2015. "Why real leisure really matters: incentive effects on real effort in the laboratory," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(2), pages 284-301, June.
    35. Andreoni, James, 1995. "Cooperation in Public-Goods Experiments: Kindness or Confusion?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(4), pages 891-904, September.
    36. Berger, Johannes & Herbertz, Claus & Sliwka, Dirk, 2011. "Incentives and Cooperation in Firms: Field Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 5618, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    37. Dickinson, David L, 1999. "An Experimental Examination of Labor Supply and Work Intensities," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(4), pages 638-670, October.
    38. Matthias Weber & Arthur Schram, 2017. "The Non‐equivalence of Labour Market Taxes: A Real‐effort Experiment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(604), pages 2187-2215, September.
    39. Dutcher, E. Glenn & Salmon, Timothy C. & Saral, Krista J., 2015. "Is "Real" Effort More Real?," MPRA Paper 68394, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    40. Irlenbusch, Bernd & Sliwka, Dirk, 2005. "Incentives, Decision Frames, and Motivation Crowding Out – An Experimental Investigation," IZA Discussion Papers 1758, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    41. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    42. 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.
    43. Felipe A. Araujo & Erin Carbone & Lynn Conell-Price & Marli W. Dunietz & Ania Jaroszewicz & Rachel Landsman & Diego Lamé & Lise Vesterlund & Stephanie W. Wang & Alistair J. Wilson, 2016. "The slider task: an example of restricted inference on incentive effects," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 2(1), pages 1-12, May.
    44. Johannes Berger & Christine Harbring & Dirk Sliwka, 2013. "Performance Appraisals and the Impact of Forced Distribution--An Experimental Investigation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(1), pages 54-68, June.
    45. Gary Charness & David Masclet & Marie Claire Villeval, 2014. "The Dark Side of Competition for Status (preprint)," Working Papers halshs-01090241, HAL.
    46. Tanjim Hossain & King King Li, 2014. "Crowding Out in the Labor Market: A Prosocial Setting Is Necessary," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(5), pages 1148-1160, May.
    47. 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.
    48. Alexander W. Cappelen & Karl O. Moene & Erik Ø. Sørensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2013. "Needs Versus Entitlements—An International Fairness Experiment," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 574-598, June.
    49. Bruno S. Frey & Reto Jegen, 2001. "Motivation Crowding Theory," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 589-611, December.
    50. Emel Filiz-Ozbay & Erkut Ozbay, 2014. "Effect of an audience in public goods provision," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(2), pages 200-214, June.
    51. Erkal, Nisvan & Gangadharan, Lata & Koh, Boon Han, 2018. "Monetary and non-monetary incentives in real-effort tournaments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 528-545.
    52. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2000. "Fairness and Retaliation," International Economic Association Series, in: L.-A. Gérard-Varet & S.-C. Kolm & J. Mercier Ythier (ed.), The Economics of Reciprocity, Giving and Altruism, chapter 7, pages 153-173, Palgrave Macmillan.
    53. Rupert Sausgruber, 2009. "A note on peer effects between teams," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 12(2), pages 193-201, June.
    54. Bandiera, Oriana & Barankay, Iwan & Rasul, Imran, 2013. "Team incentives: evidence from a firm level," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 53141, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    55. Gromping, Ulrike, 2007. "Estimators of Relative Importance in Linear Regression Based on Variance Decomposition," The American Statistician, American Statistical Association, vol. 61, pages 139-147, May.
    56. Ghazala Azmat & Nagore Iriberri, 2016. "The Provision of Relative Performance Feedback: An Analysis of Performance and Satisfaction," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 77-110, March.
    57. 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. Haeckl, Simone, 2022. "Image concerns in ex-ante self-assessments–Gender differences and behavioral consequences," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    2. List, John A. & Shah, Rohen, 2022. "The impact of team incentives on performance in graduate school: Evidence from two pilot RCTs," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).
    3. Sausgruber, Rupert & Sonntag, Axel & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2021. "Disincentives from redistribution: evidence on a dividend of democracy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).

    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. Sebastian J. Goerg & Sebastian Kube & Jonas Radbruch, 2019. "The Effectiveness of Incentive Schemes in the Presence of Implicit Effort Costs," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(9), pages 4063-4078, September.
    2. Erkal, Nisvan & Gangadharan, Lata & Koh, Boon Han, 2018. "Monetary and non-monetary incentives in real-effort tournaments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 528-545.
    3. David Gill & Zdenka Kissová & Jaesun Lee & Victoria Prowse, 2019. "First-Place Loving and Last-Place Loathing: How Rank in the Distribution of Performance Affects Effort Provision," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(2), pages 494-507, February.
    4. Gjedrem, William Gilje & Kvaløy, Ola, 2020. "Relative performance feedback to teams," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    5. Sausgruber, Rupert & Sonntag, Axel & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2021. "Disincentives from redistribution: evidence on a dividend of democracy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    6. Kenju Kamei & Thomas Markussen, 2023. "Free Riding and Workplace Democracy—Heterogeneous Task Preferences and Sorting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(7), pages 3884-3904, July.
    7. 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.
    8. Gall, Thomas & Hu, Xiaocheng & Vlassopoulos, Michael, 2016. "Dynamic Incentive Effects of Team Formation: Experimental Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 10393, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Simon Gächter & Lingbo Huang & Martin Sefton, 2016. "Combining “real effort” with induced effort costs: the ball-catching task," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(4), pages 687-712, December.
    10. Gill, David & Prowse, Victoria, 2019. "Measuring costly effort using the slider task," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 1-9.
    11. Haeckl, Simone, 2022. "Image concerns in ex-ante self-assessments–Gender differences and behavioral consequences," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    12. Gjedrem, William Gilje, 2018. "Relative performance feedback: Effective or dismaying?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 1-16.
    13. Beugnot, Julie & Fortin, Bernard & Lacroix, Guy & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2019. "Gender and peer effects on performance in social networks," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 207-224.
    14. Brice Corgnet & Roberto Hernán-González & Eric Schniter, 2015. "Why real leisure really matters: incentive effects on real effort in the laboratory," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(2), pages 284-301, June.
    15. Brandts, Jordi & Corgnet, Brice & Hernán-González, Roberto & Ortiz, José Mª & Solà, Carles, 2021. "Watching or not watching? Access to information and the incentive effects of firing threats," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 672-685.
    16. Beugnot, Julie & Fortin, Bernard & Lacroix, Guy & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2017. "Gender and Peer Effects in Social Networks," IZA Discussion Papers 10588, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Delavallade, Clara, 2021. "Motivating teams: Private feedback and public recognition at work," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    18. Corgnet, Brice & Martin, Ludivine & Ndodjang, Peguy & Sutan, Angela, 2019. "On the merit of equal pay: Performance manipulation and incentive setting," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 23-45.
    19. Beugnot, Julie & Fortin, Bernard & Lacroix, Guy & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2017. "Gender and Peer Effects in Social Networks," IZA Discussion Papers 10588, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Simon Gächter & Lingbo Huang & Martin Sefton, 2016. "Combining “real effort” with induced effort costs: the ball-catching task," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(4), pages 687-712, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    real-effort experiment; cooperation; team; intrinsic motivation; labors;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
    • L20 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - General

    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:kud:kuiedp:1808. 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: Thomas Hoffmann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/okokudk.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.