The Magic of the Personal Touch: Field Experimental Evidence on Money and Appreciation as Gifts

Christiane Bradler and Susanne Neckermann
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Christiane Bradler: ZEW Centre for European Economic Research, Mannheim, Germany

No 16-045/VII, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute

Abstract: This paper makes use of two field experiments to explore individual effort responses to gifts. We extend the literature by looking at nonfinancial gifts and gifts that combine financial and nonfinancial elements with or without adding a ``personal touch.'' We find that non-pecuniary gifts that signal worker appreciation induce reciprocity. Most importantly, we find that there are interaction effects between money and appreciation. While money and appreciation are individually effective, they only work well together when they are combined with a personal touch. This points to the importance of interpersonal elements in gift giving and has important implications for how to effectively elicit worker effort.

Keywords: gift exchange; reciprocity; personnel economics; gratitude; personal touch; field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 M52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-06-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp, nep-hrm and nep-net
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Magic of the Personal Touch: Field Experimental Evidence on Money and Appreciation as Gifts (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tin:wpaper:20160045

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