Abstract
Controllability is the decisive advantage of experimental research. Therefore this method suggests itself for investigating clear-cut hypothesis regarding the impact of managerial design issues on organisational behaviour. The current paper reviews selective experimental findings on behaviour under various incentives schemes. It is found that the effectiveness of fixed wages is to a large extent determined by social norms like reciprocity. Fixed wages are analysed if effort is intransparent and in the presence of career concerns. Furthermore they are contrasted with piece rate schemes. Different design options of relative compensation, are discussed with a special emphasis on taking sabotage activities into account.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abbink K, Irlenbush B, Renner, E (2000) The moonlighting game—An experimental study on reciprocity and retribution. Journal of Economic Behavior, and Organisation 42, 2: 265–277.
Atkinson, JW (1984) An introduction to motivation, Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand.
Becker B, Huselid MA (1992) The incentive effects of tournament compensation systems. Administrative Science Quarterly 37, 336–50.
Berg, J, Dickhaut J, McCabe K (1995), Trust, reciprocity and social history. Games and Economic Behavior 10, 122–142.
Bewley TF (1999) Why wages dont' fall during a recession. Harvard University Press.
Bingley P, Eriksson T (2001) Pay spread and skewness, employee effort and firm productivity. Working Paper Aarhus.
Bull C, Schotter A, Weigelt K (1987) Tournaments and piece rates: An experimental study. Journal of Political Economy 95, 1–33.
Charness G (1998) Attribution and reciprocity in a simulated labor market: an experimental investigation. Discussion Paper, UPF Barcelona.
Clark DJ, Riis C (1998) Contests with more than one prize. American Economic Review 88, 276–89.
Clark K, Sefton M (2001) The sequential prisoner's dilemma: Evidence on reciprocation. Economic Journal 111, 51–68.
Chen K-P (2003) Sabotage in promotion tournaments. Journal of Law, Economics and Organisation 19, 1: 199–139.
Deci EL (1971) Effects of externally mediated rewards on intrinsic motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 18, 105–115.
Deci EL (1975) Instrinsic motivation. Plenum Press, New York.
Dufwenberg M, Gneezy U (2000) Measuring beliefs in an experimental lost wallet game. Games and Economic Behavior 30, 163–182.
Dufwenberg M, Kirchsteiger G (2000) Reciprocity and wage undercutting. European Economic Review 44, 1069–1078.
Ehrenberg RG, Bognanno ML (1990) Do tournaments have incentive effects?. Journal of Political Economy 98, 1307–24.
Eriksson T (1999) Executive compensation and tournament theory: Empirical tests on Danish data. Journal of Labor Economics 17, 262–80.
Fahr R, Irlenbusch B (2000) Fairness as a constraint on trust in reciprocity: Earned property rights in a reciprocal exchange experiment. Economic Letters 66, 275–282.
Falk A, Fehr E (2003) Why labour market experiments? Labour Economics 10, 399–406.
Fehr E, Gächter S, Kirchsteiger G (1997) Reciprocity as a contract enforcement device-experimental evidence. Econometrica 64, 833–860.
Fehr E, Gächter S (1998) Reciprocity, and economics: The economic implications of Homo Reciprocans. European Economic Review, 42, 845–859.
Fehr E, Gächter S (2000) Fairness and retaliation: The economics of reciprocity. Journal of Economic Perspectives 14, 3: 159–181.
Fehr E, Gächter S (2002) Do incentive contracts undermine voluntary cooperation?, University of Zurich Discussion Paper.
Fehr E., Kirchsteiger G, Riedl A (1993) Does fairness prevent market clearing? An experimental investigation. Quarterly Journal of Economics 108, 2: 437–460.
Fehr E., Rockenbach B (2003) Detrimental effects of sanctions on human altruism. Nature 422, 137–140.
Fehr E., Schmidt K (2000) Fairness, incentives and contractual choices. European Economic Review 44, 1057–1068.
Fernie S, Metcalf D (1999) It's not what you pay, it's the way that you, pay it and that's what gets results: Jockey's pay and performance. Labour 13, 385–411.
Frey BS (1997) Not just for the money—An economic theory of personal motivation. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Garicano L, Palacios-Huerta I (2000) An empirical examination of multidimensional effort in tournaments. Working Paper, Brown University.
Gibbons R (1998) Incentives in organisations. Journal of Economic Perspectives 12, 4: 115–32.
Gibbons R (2000) Why organisations are such a mess (and what an economist might do about it). Working paper MIT.
Gneezy U (2003) Do high wages lead to high profits? An Experimental Study of Reciprocity Using Real Effort. The University of Chicago GSB. Chicago.
Green J, Stokey N (1983) A comparison of tournaments and contracts. Journal of Political Economy 91, 349–64.
Grossman S, Hart O (1983) An analysis of the principal-agent problem. Econometrica 51, 7–45.
Güth W, Huck S, Ockenfels P (1996) Two-level ultimatum bargaining with incomplete information. Economic Journal 106, 593–604.
Harbring C, Irlenbusch B (2003a) An experimental study on tournament design. Labour Economics 10, 443–464.
Harbring C, Irlenbusch B (2003b) How many winners are good to have?—On tournaments with sabotage. mimeo University of Erfurt.
Harbring C, Irlenbusch B (2004) On the influence of wage compression on sabotage. mineo University of Erfurt.
Harbring C, Irlenbusch B (forthcoming) Incentives in tournaments with endogenous prize selection. forthcoming in: Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics.
Harbring C, Irlenbusch B, Kräkel M, Selten R (2004) Sabotage in asymmetric contests— An experimental analysis, mimeo University of Erfurt.
Hart O, Holmström B (1987) The theory of contracts. In: T. Bewley (ed.). Advances in Economic Theory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 71–155.
Holmström B (1982) Managerial incentive problems—A dynamic perspective. In: Essays in Economics and Management in Honor of Lars Wahlbeck, Helsinki; reprinted in: Review of Economic Studies 66, January 1999, 169–82.
Huck S (1999) Responder behavior in ultimatum offer games with incomplete information. Journal of Economic Psychology 20, 183–206.
Irlenbusch B, Sliwka D (2004) Incentives, decision frames, and motivation crowding out —An experimental investigation. mimeo University of Erfurt.
Irlenbusch B, Sliwka, D (2005) Transparency and reciprocal behavior in employment relations. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organisation 56, 383–403.
Irlenbusch B, Sliwka D (forthcoming) Carrer concerns in a simple experimental labour market. forthcoming in: European Economic Review.
Kagel J, Kim, CK, Moser, D (1996) Fairness in ultimatum games with asymmetric information and asymmetric payoffs. Games and Economic Behavior 13, 100–110.
Kräkel M (1999) Organisation und Management, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen.
Lazear EP (1989) Pay equality and industrial politics. Journal of Political Economy 97, 561–580.
Lazear EP (1998) Personnel economics for managers. John Wiley and Sons, New York.
Lazear EP (1999) Personnel economics: Past lessons and future directions—Presidential address to the Society of Labor Economists. Journal of Labor Economics 17, 2: 199–236.
Lazear EP (2000) Performance pay and productivity. American Economic Review 90, 1346–1361.
Lazear EP, Sherwin R (1981) Rank-order tournaments as optimum labor contracts. Journal of Political Economy 89, 841–864.
Lynch J, Zax JS (1998) Prizes, selection and performance in Arabian horse racing. Discussion Paper University of Colorado.
Main B, O'Reilly C, Wade J (1993) Top executive pay: Tournaments of teamwork. Journal of Labor Economics 11, 606–28.
McLaughlin KJ (1988) Aspects of tournament models. Research in Labor Economics 9, 225–256.
Milgrom P, Roberts J (1992) Economics, organisations and management, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
Mitzkewitz M, Nagel R (1993) Experimental results on ultimatum games with incomplete information. International Journal of Game Theory 22, 171–198.
Moldovanu B, Sela A (2001) The optimal allocation of prizes in contests. American Economic Review 91, 542–558.
Nalebuff BJ, Stiglitz JE (1983) Prizes and incentives: Towards a general theory of compensation and competition. Bell Journal of Economics 13, 21–43.
Nalbantian HR, Schotter A (1997) Productivity under group incentives: An experimental study. American Economic Review 87, 314–341.
Oettinger GS (1999) An empirical analysis of the daily labor supply of stadium vendors. Journal of Political Economy 107, 2: 360–392.
Oettinger GS (2001) Do piece rates influence effort choices? Evidence from stadium vendors. Economics Letters 73, 117–123.
O'Keeffe MW, Viscusi K, Zeckhauser RJ (1984) Economic contests: Comparative reward schemes. Journal of Labor Economics 2, 27–56.
O'Reilly C, Main B, Crystal G (1988) CEO Compensation as tournament and social comparison: A tale of two theories. Administrative Science Quarterly 33, 257–74.
Orrison A, Schotter A, Weigelt K (2004) Multiperson tournamants: An experimental examination. Management Science 50, 268–279.
Paarsch HJ, Shearer BS (1999) The response of worker effort to piece rates. Journal of Human Resources 34, 4: 643–667.
Paarsch HJ, Shearer BS (2000) Piece rates, fixed wages, and incentive effects: Statistical evidence from payroll records. International Economic Review 41, 59–92.
Prendergast C (1999) The provision of incentives in firms. Journal of Economic Literature 37, 7–63.
Rosen S (1986) Prizes and incentives in elimination tournaments. American Economic Review 76, 701–715.
Sappington DEM (1991) Incentives in principal-agent relationships. Journal of Economic Perspectives 5, 45–66.
Schotter A, Weigelt K (1992) Asymmetric tournaments, equal opportunity laws, and affirmative action: Some experimental results. Quarterly Journal of Economics 107, S. 511–539.
Van Dijk F, Sonnemans J, Van Winden F (2001) Incentive systems in a real effort experiment, European Economic Review 45, 187–214.
Van der Heijden E, Nelissen JHM, Potters J, Verbon H (2001) Simple and complex gift exchange in the laboratory. Economic Inquiry 39, 280–297.
Weigelt K, Dukerich J, Schotter A (1989) Reactions to discrimination in an incentive pay compensation scheme: A game-theoretic approach. Organisational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 44, 26–44.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
I am greatly indebted to my co-authors Christine Harbring, Matthias Kräkel, Reinhard Selten and Dirk Sliwka. Without the exciting collaboration with them this review paper could not have been written. Financial support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft through grants KR2077/2-1, KR2077/2-3, IR43/1-1 and the European Union through the EU-TMR Research Network ENDEAR (FMRX-CT98-0238) is gratefully acknowledged.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Irlenbusch, B. Experimental perspectives on incentives in organisations. cent.eur.j.oper.res. 14, 1–24 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10100-006-0157-6
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10100-006-0157-6