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Motivating Teams : Private Feedback and Public Recognition at Work

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  • Delavallade,Clara Anne

Abstract

Aside from money, what works best to incentivize teams? Using a randomized field experiment, this paper tests whether fixed-wage workers respond better to receiving private feedback on performance or to competing for public recognition. Female school feeding teams in 450 South African schools were randomly assigned to receiving (i) private feedback: information on performance and ranking using scorecards, (ii) public recognition: public ceremony award for top performers, (iii) both feedback and award, or (iv) no intervention. The analysis yields two main findings. First, while private feedback and public award are more effective when offered separately, receiving feedback on performance boosts teams’ effort more than public recognition. Second, image motivation crowds out intrinsic motivation, especially for low-ability teams. This suggests that providing performance feedback can be an effective policy for leveraging intrinsic motivation and improving service delivery, more so than mechanisms leveraging image motivation.

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  • Delavallade,Clara Anne, 2021. "Motivating Teams : Private Feedback and Public Recognition at Work," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9621, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9621
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    Keywords

    Health Service Management and Delivery; Wages; Compensation&Benefits; Educational Sciences; Gender and Development;
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