Incentives and Cooperation in Firms: Field Evidence

Johannes Berger (), Claus Herbertz () and Dirk Sliwka
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Johannes Berger: University of Cologne
Claus Herbertz: University of Cologne

No 5618, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We empirically investigate the impact of incentive scheme structure on the degree of cooperation in firms using a unique and representative data set. Combining employee survey data with detailed firm level information on the relative importance of individual, team, and company performance for compensation, we find a significant positive relation between the intensity of team incentives and several survey measures of cooperation. Moreover, higher powered team incentives are associated with lower degrees of absenteeism while this is not the case for individual incentives.

Keywords: incentives; cooperation; teams; helping effort (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D23 J33 M52 M54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2011-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-cbe, nep-hrm and nep-lab
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

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