High-Powered Performance Pay and Crowding Out of Nonmonetary Motives

• Published in: Management science Vol. 64; no. 10; pp. 4669 - 4680
• Main Authors: Huffman, David, Bognanno, Michael
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Linthicum INFORMS 01.10.2018; Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
• Subjects: Analysis; Employee incentives; Employee performance; field experiment; Goal programming; incentives; intrinsic motivation; Management science; Monetary incentives; Motivation; noncognitive skills; Psychology; United States

A previous literature cautions that paying workers for performance might crowd out nonmonetary motives to work hard. Empirical evidence from the field, however, has been based on between-subjects designs that are best suited for detecting crowding out due to low-powered incentives. High-powered ince...