Motivating Workers through Task Assignment: A Dynamic Model of Up-and-Down Competition for Status

Julianna Butler, Scott Gilpatric () and Christian Vossler
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Scott Gilpatric: Department of Economics, University of Tennessee

No 2017-03, Working Papers from University of Tennessee, Department of Economics

Abstract: We show how competition for status that conveys explicit benefits can motivate effort in organizations such as schools, public agencies, and unionized firms in the absence of monetary incentives or intrinsically motivated workers. We develop an indefinitely-repeated labor market tournament model in which high-status agents may be rewarded either monetarily or with favorable task assignment. If monetary incentives are unavailable and the principal relies on task assignment this entails an efficiency cost relative to the benchmark case with monetary incentives. Our model offers a new perspective on the value to an employer of flexibility over job assignments within labor contracts.

Keywords: task assignment; status; dynamic tournament; non-wage compensation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C73 J41 L20 M51 M52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2017-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cta, nep-gth, nep-hrm and nep-lma
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ten:wpaper:2017-03

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