Cheating for the Cause: The Effects of Performance-Based Pay on Socially Oriented Misreporting

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hobson, Jessen L.; Sommerfeldt, Ryan D.; Wang, Laura W.
• 署名单位: University of Illinois System; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Washington State University
• 刊物名称: ACCOUNTING REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0001-4826
• DOI: 10.2308/TAR-2019-0357
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 317-336
• 关键词: Field experiments; self-concept; honesty; ORGANIZATIONS; COMPENSATION; preferences; INFORMATION; personality; incentives; management

摘要

We examine the effect of performance-based pay on misreporting intended to benefit a social mission. We show that performance-based pay decreases people's propensity to misreport for a social mission in a not-for-profit setting ( Experiment 1). We similarly show that in a for-profit setting, performance-based pay also decreases misreporting propensity for a social mission, although not for a non-social mission (Experiment 2). Finally, using a framed field experiment with participants attending a conference hosted by a real charity, we show that performance-based pay reduces actual misreporting when misreporting leads to more donations for the charity (Experiment 3). These results are consistent with our theory suggesting that, relative to fixed pay, performance-based pay imposes additional costs on misreporting employees' self-concepts of benevolence and honesty.