Digital technologies and performance incentives: evidence from businesses in the Swiss economy

Johannes Lehmann () and Michael Beckmann ()
Additional contact information
Johannes Lehmann: University of Basel, Faculty of Business and Economics
Michael Beckmann: University of Basel, Faculty of Business and Economics

Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, 2025, vol. 161, issue 1, 1-19

Abstract: Abstract Using novel survey data from Swiss firms, this paper empirically examines the relationship between the use of digital technologies and the prevalence of performance incentives. We argue that digital technologies tend to reduce the cost of organizational monitoring through improved measurement of employee behavior and performance, as well as through employee substitution in conjunction with a reduced agency problem. While we expect the former mechanism to increase the prevalence of performance incentives, the latter is likely to decrease it. Our doubly robust ATE estimates show that companies using business software and certain key technologies of Industry 4.0 increasingly resort to performance incentives, suggesting that the improved measurement effect dominates the employee substitution effect. In addition, we find that companies emerging as technology-friendly use performance incentives more frequently than their technology-averse counterparts. Both findings hold for managerial and non-managerial employees. Our estimation results are robust to a variety of sensitivity checks and suggest that Swiss businesses leverage digital technologies to enhance control over production or service processes, allowing them to intensify their management of employees through performance incentives.

Keywords: Digital technologies; Computer technologies; Business software; Key technologies of Industry 4.0; Performance incentives; Doubly robust ATE estimation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1186/s41937-024-00132-3 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
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:spr:sjecst:v:161:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1186_s41937-024-00132-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/41937

DOI: 10.1186/s41937-024-00132-3

Access Statistics for this article

Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics is currently edited by Marius Brülhart

More articles in Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics from Springer, Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().