Monetary and Social Incentives in Multi-Tasking: The Ranking Substitution Effect

Matthias Stefan (), Jürgen Huber (), Michael Kirchler (), Matthias Sutter () and Markus Walzl ()

Working Papers from Faculty of Economics and Statistics, University of Innsbruck

Abstract: Rankings are intended as incentive tools on labor markets. Yet, when agents perform multiple tasks - not all of which can be ranked with respect to performance -, rankings might have unintended side-effects. Based on a dynamic model of multi-tasking, we present an experiment with financial professionals in which we identify hidden ranking costs when performance in one task is ranked while in another prosocial task it is not. We find that subjects lagging behind (leading) in the ranked task devote less (more) effort to the prosocial task. We discuss implications for optimal incentive schemes in organizations with multitasking.

Keywords: multi-tasking decision problem; rank incentives; framed field experiment; finance professionals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D02 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2020-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-gen, nep-hrm, nep-ore and nep-upt
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Related works:
Working Paper: Monetary and Social Incentives in Multi-Tasking: The Ranking Substitution Effect (2020)
Working Paper: Monetary and Social Incentives in Multi-Tasking: The Ranking Substitution Effect (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inn:wpaper:2020-06

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