Self-Managed Working Time and Employee Effort: Theory and Evidence

Michael Beckmann, Thomas Cornelissen () and Matthias Kräkel

No 768, SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research from DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)

Abstract: This paper theoretically and empirically examines the impact of self-managed working time (SMWT) on employee effort. As a means of increased worker autonomy, SMWT can theoretically increase effort via intrinsic motivation and reciprocal behaviour, but can lead to a decrease of effort due to a loss of control. Based on German individual-level panel data, we find that SMWT employees exert higher effort levels than employees with fixed working hours. Even after accounting for observed and unobserved characteristics there remains a modest positive effect. This effect is mainly driven by employees who are intrinsically motivated, suggesting that intrinsic motivation is complementary to SMWT. However, reciprocal work intensification does not seem to be an important channel of providing extra effort.

Keywords: Self-managed working time; worker autonomy; employee effort; reciprocity; intrinsic motivation; complementarity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J81 M50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50 p.
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-hrm, nep-lma and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.510143.de/diw_sp0768.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Self-managed working time and employee effort: Theory and evidence (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp768

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