The Role of Salience in Performance Schemes: Evidence from a Field Experiment

Florian Englmaier, Andreas Roider and Uwe Sunde

No 6448, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Incentive schemes affect performance and priorities of agents but, in reality, they can be complicated even for simple tasks. We analyze the effects of the salience of incentives in a team production setting where the principal has an interest in quantity and quality of output. We use data from a controlled field experiment that changed the communication of the incentive system without changing the incentive system. The results indicate that salience of incentives itself is statistically and economically important for performance. We find that higher salience of incentives for quantity increases quantity, reduces quality, and increases in-pocket income of team managers.

Keywords: communication; salience; attention; incentives; field experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 D80 J30 M52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2012-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cta, nep-exp and nep-hrm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Forthcoming - revised version published as 'The Role of Communication of Performance Schemes: Evidence from a Field Experiment' in: Management Science, 2017, 63(12), 4061-4080

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Related works:
Working Paper: The Role of Salience in Performance Schemes: Evidence from a Field Experiment (2012)
Working Paper: The Role of Salience in Performance Schemes: Evidence from a Field Experiment (2012)
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