A Field Experiment in Motivating Employee Ideas

Susanne Neckermann, Michael Gibbs and Christoph Siemroth

No 14-045/VII, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute

Abstract: We study the effects of a field experiment designed to motivate employee ideas, at a large technology company. Employees were encouraged to submit ideas on process and product improvements via an online system. In the experiment, the company randomized 19 account teams into treatment and control groups. Employees in treatment teams received rewards if their ideas were approved. Nothing changed for employees in control teams. Our main finding is that rewards substantially increased the quality of ideas submitted. Further, rewards increased participation in the suggestion system, but decreased the number of ideas per participating employee, with zero net effect on the total quantity of ideas. The broader participation base persisted even after the reward was discontinued, suggesting habituation. We find no evidence for motivational crowding out. Our findings suggest that rewards can improve innovation and creativity, and that there may be a tradeoff between the quantity and quality of ideas.

Keywords: innovation; rewards; creativity; field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 J24 M52 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-04-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-hrm, nep-ino and nep-ppm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://papers.tinbergen.nl/14045.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: A Field Experiment in Motivating Employee Ideas (2017)
Working Paper: A Field Experiment in Motivating Employee Ideas (2014)
Working Paper: A field experiment in motivating employee ideas (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tin:wpaper:20140045

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 ().