Abstract:We examine how worker productivity differs when performance-based compensation is based on measures of quantity, creativity, or the product of both measures. In an experimental task in which participants design "rebus puzzles," we find that quantitybased compensation increases the number of puzzles produced, and that creativity-based compensation improves average creativity ratings, as evaluated by an independent panel of raters. However, a weighted compensation scheme that rewards the product of quantity and average creativity ratings results in weighted productivity scores that are significantly lower than those generated by participants with quantity incentives alone. Follow-up analysis indicates that relative to participants compensated solely for quantity, participants in the weighted condition produce approximately the same number of high-creativity puzzles, but produce significantly fewer puzzles of mediocre creativity. This finding is consistent with the premise that participants rewarded for creativity-weighted output simplify their objective by restricting their production to high-creativity ideas, but are unable to translate this focus into a greater volume of high-creativity output. Implications address a possible explanation for why firms are reluctant to incorporate creativity measures within multi-dimensional performance measurement systems, notwithstanding published suggestions to do so.

The surfaces of the human body are heavily populated by a highly diverse microbial ecosystem termed the microbiota. The largest and richest among these highly heterogeneous populations of microbes is the gut microbiota. The collection of microbes and their genes, called the microbiome, has been studied intensely through the past few years using novel metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and metabolomics approaches. This has enhanced our understanding of how the microbiome affects our metabolic, immunologic, neurologic, and endocrine homeostasis. Hypertension is a leading cause of cardiovascular disease worldwide; it contributes to stroke, heart disease, kidney failure, premature death, and disability. Recently, studies in humans and animals have shown that alterations in microbiota and its metabolites are associated with hypertension and atherosclerosis. In this review, we compile the recent findings and hypotheses describing the interplay between the microbiome and blood pressure, and we highlight some prospects by which utilization of microbiome-related techniques may be incorporated to better understand the pathophysiology and treatment of hypertension.

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