Do Financial Incentives Help or Harm Performance in Interesting Tasks?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Kim, Ji Hyun; Gerhart, Barry; Fang, Meiyu
• 署名单位: University of Wisconsin System; University of Wisconsin Madison; National Central University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0021-9010
• DOI: 10.1037/apl0000851
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 153-167
• 关键词: compensation; financial incentives; motivation; task performance; Meta-analysis

摘要

There continues to be disagreement about whether financial incentives help or harm performance, especially in interesting tasks. Although the Jenkins, Mitra, Gupta, and Shaw (1998) meta-analysis finds a positive effect of incentives, including in interesting tasks (reported rho <^> = +.34; our computed delta = +.79), a more recent and widely cited meta-analysis by Weibel et al. (2010) reports, in contrast, a negative effect (delta = -.13) of incentives on performance in interesting tasks. Thus, the effect size for interesting tasks differs by .92 standard deviation (SD) between the two meta-analyses, a very large difference. We incorporate primary studies from these two meta-analyses and other sources in a new, more complete meta-analysis of incentives-performance in interesting and noninteresting tasks. We also examine additional key moderators (incentive intensity, how motivation-driven performance is, and autonomy). We find that the incentives-performance relationship is positive in both interesting (delta = +.58) and noninteresting tasks (delta = +.52). In addition, we find that the positive incentives-performance relationship is robust to not only task interest, but also to incentive intensity, how motivation-driven performance is, and autonomy. However, the incentives-performance relationship is less positive for performance measured as quality, especially in interesting tasks. We provide suggestions for future research.