Social Distance and Control Aversion: Evidence from the Internet and the Laboratory

Katrin Schmelz and Anthony Ziegelmeyer

No 100, TWI Research Paper Series from Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut, Universität Konstanz

Abstract: We test experimentally whether monitoring is less likely to reduce work motivation in distant than in close principal-agent relationships. Employing the same standard subject pool of students, we compare a laboratory and an internet implementation of an experimental principal-agent game where the principal can impose control at two different levels on the agent. Agency relationships are arguably more distant in the internet than in the laboratory setting. We find that differences in agents' effort due to an increase in the level of control are larger in the internet than in the laboratory experiment. The effect is driven by both higher intrinsic motivation and stronger control aversion in the laboratory. Agents' effort differences are fairly stable over time in both experiments which indicates that even experienced agents react more negatively to the implementation of control in the laboratory than on the internet.

Keywords: Control; Crowding effects of control; Internet; Motivation; Social distance; Workplace arrangements (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-hrm
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:twi:respas:0100

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