What is an Award Worth? An Econometric Assessment of the Impact of Awards on Employee Performance

Susanne Neckermann (), Reto Cueni () and Bruno S. Frey ()

No CESifo Working Paper No. 2657, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Group Munich

Abstract: Behavioral economics documents the importance of status and self-image concerns in the workplace, but is largely silent about how to instrumentalize them to induce effort. Awards - widespread in the corporate sector and elsewhere - are motivators that derive their value from such social concerns. Panel data from the call center of a large international bank allow us to estimate the impact of receiving an award on effort. The performance of winners proves to be significantly higher than that of comparable non-recipients after the award has been presented. This increase in work effort is sizeable, robust, and not driven by reverse causation.

Keywords: awards; motivation; non-monetary compensation; event-study; incentives (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 J33 M52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Working Paper: What is an award worth? An econometric assessment of the impact of awards on employee performance (2009)
Working Paper: What Is an Award Worth? An Econometric Assessment of the Impact of Awards on Employee Performance (2009)
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