Free Riding and Workplace Democracy – Heterogeneous Task Preferences and Sorting

Kenju Kamei and Thomas Markussen

No 2020_01, Department of Economics Working Papers from Durham University, Department of Economics

Abstract: A novel laboratory experiment is used to show that mismatching between task preferences and task assignment undermines worker productivity and leads to free riding in teams. We elicit task preferences from all workers. Workers’ endogenous sorting into tasks significantly improves productivity under individual-based remuneration (performance pay). Under team-based remuneration (revenue sharing), free riding is significant, but almost exclusively among those working on undesired tasks. Task selection by majority voting in teams alleviates free riding, but only partly so, because some workers are still assigned to undesired tasks. Our findings have broad implications for research using real effort tasks.

Keywords: free riding; team; workplace democracy; experiment; real effort (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C92 D82 H41 J01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-exp and nep-hrm
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Free Riding and Workplace Democracy—Heterogeneous Task Preferences and Sorting (2023)
Working Paper: Free Riding and Workplace Democracy – Heterogeneous Task Preferences and Sorting (2020)
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