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The Effects of Prize Structures on Innovative Performance

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  • Joshua Graff Zivin
  • Elizabeth Lyons

Abstract

Successful innovation is essential for the survival and growth of organizations but how best to incentivize innovation is poorly understood. We compare how two common incentive schemes affect innovative performance in a field experiment run in partnership with a large life sciences company. We find that a winner-takes-all compensation scheme generates significantly more novel innovation relative to a compensation scheme that offers the same total compensation, but shared across the ten best innovations. Moreover, we find that the elasticity of creativity with respect to compensation schemes is much larger for teams than individual innovators.

Suggested Citation

  • Joshua Graff Zivin & Elizabeth Lyons, 2020. "The Effects of Prize Structures on Innovative Performance," NBER Working Papers 26737, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26737
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Luo, Lianfa & Cheng, Zhiming & Ye, Qingqing & Cheng, Yanjun & Smyth, Russell & Yang, Zhiqing & Zhang, Le, 2024. "Nonmonetary awards and innovation: Evidence from winning China's Top Brand Contest," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    2. Richard T. Carson & Joshua Graff Zivin & Jordan J. Louviere & Sally Sadoff & Jeffrey G. Shrader, 2022. "The Risk of Caution: Evidence from an Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(12), pages 9042-9060, December.
    3. Joshua Krieger & Ramana Nanda & Ian Hunt & Aimee Reynolds & Peter Tarsa, 2022. "Scoring and Funding Breakthrough Ideas: Evidence from a Global Pharmaceutical Company," Harvard Business School Working Papers 23-014, Harvard Business School, revised Nov 2023.
    4. Richard Carson & Joshua S. Graff Zivin & Jordan Louviere & Sally Sadoff & Jeffrey G. Shrader Jr, 2020. "The Risk of Caution: Evidence from an R&D Experiment," NBER Working Papers 26847, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Erina Ytsma, 2022. "Effort and Selection Effects of Performance Pay in Knowledge Creation," CESifo Working Paper Series 10153, CESifo.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • M54 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Labor Management
    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D

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