Tournaments Without Prizes: Evidence from Personnel Records

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Blanes i Vidal, Jordi; Nossol, Mareike
• 署名单位: University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.1110.1383
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: 1721-1736
• 关键词: tournaments; Relative concerns; status concerns; relative performance feedback; relative performance evaluation

摘要

W e use a quasi-experimental research design to study the effect of giving workers feedback on their relative performance. The setting is a firm in which workers are paid piece rates and where, for exogenous reasons, management begins to reveal to workers their relative position in the distribution of pay and productivity. We find that merely providing this information leads to a large and long-lasting increase in productivity that is costless to the firm. Our findings are consistent with the interpretation that workers' incipient concerns about their relative standing are activated by information about how they are performing relative to others.