Motivating employees through career paths

Heski Bar-Isaac and Raphaël Levy

No 13828, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: Firms have discretion over task allocations, which may dampen employees’ career prospects, and, hence, motivation. Task assignments and worker motivation interact through the extent of labor market competition; that is, the possibility of moving to another firm. More competition enhances motivation but decreases firms’ incentives to assign workers to informative tasks. One consequence is that competitive firms sometimes choose strategies that lead to intermediate competition. When the employee pool is heterogeneous, firms might choose different human resources practices that attract different kinds of workers, and differentiate themselves through the career opportunities within and beyond the firms that they offer.

Keywords: Career concerns; Task assignments; Professional service firms; Labour market competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J32 J33 M12 M5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-hrm, nep-lma and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Journal Article: Motivating Employees through Career Paths (2022)
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