Should Managers Use Team-Based Contests?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Chen, Hua; Lim, Noah
• 署名单位: University of Mississippi; University of Wisconsin System; University of Wisconsin Madison
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2013.1743
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 2823-2836
• 关键词: group incentives; contests; behavioral economics; Experimental economics

摘要

When designing contests to motivate employees, should managers organize employees to compete in teams or as individuals? We develop a behavioral economics model that shows that if contestants are averse to being responsible for the team's loss, a team-based (TB) contest can yield higher effort than an individual-based (IB) contest. This prediction is contrary to those of standard economics models, which favor IB contests over TB contests. We test the competing predictions using laboratory economics experiments. The results show that when contestants do not know each other, average effort levels in the TB and TB contests are not different. When contestants are allowed to socialize with potential teammates before making effort decisions, TB contests yield higher effort relative to TB contests. We also show that the relative efficacy of TB contests is driven by contestants' aversion to letting their team down.