Enhancing Autonomy to Motivate Effort: An Experiment on the Delegation of Contract Choice

Abstract

We investigate whether giving workers autonomy through delegation of contract choice intrinsically motivates effort. In a novel laboratory experiment that controls for contract preferences and outcomes, principals can either choose the contract under which agents work on a real-effort task, or delegate the contract choice to the agents. We evaluate whether agents exert higher effort when they are allowed to choose the contract versus when the contract is imposed on them. We find no difference between the two conditions, even after controlling for baseline ability and for locus of control. Because our design excludes the possibility that preferences play a role, and because workers engaged in a real-effort task, this result casts doubt on an intrinsic link between the autonomy granted through delegation and the motivation of employees in the workplace. Our results do not deny, however, the possible instrumental benefits of autonomy (which did not play a role in our design) and their potentially powerful impact on motivation.

Deposit? Yes, please! The effect of different modes of assigning reward- and deposit-based financial incentives on effort

“…Earlier work has shown that those who have the opportunity to choose their own incentive scheme perform the same or worse than those randomly assigned to incentives (Chaudhry and Klinowski, 2016;Adjerid et al, 2021;Woerner et al, 2021). The findings of our study are in contrast to that literature, as it appears that respondents allocated more effort and earned slightly more when offered a choice among incentives (after controlling for payment condition).…”

“…Choice also offers opportunities for sophisticated individuals to commit themselves to future actions (Dizon-Ross and Zucker, 2021;Incekara-Hafalir et al, 2023), e.g., by allowing individuals to self-select into more challenging incentive schemes or to help them persevere. Other studies, however, have found that, on balance, those that had the opportunity to choose their own incentive scheme perform the same or worse than those randomly assigned to incentives (Chaudhry and Klinowski, 2016;Adjerid et al, 2021;Woerner et al, 2021). Our work follows up on the suggestion for future research put forward by Adjerid et al (2021), who suggest to nudge individuals towards potentially beneficial incentive schemes.…”

“…First, our work extends the literature on modes of assigning financial incentives by implementing nudged assignment. Earlier work in contract theory (Larkin and Leider, 2012;Chaudhry and Klinowski, 2016;Bernard et al, 2019) has suggested that free choice among different types of incentives enables individuals to 'sort' into incentives that fit their preferences. That is, individuals sort into contracts that they expect will maximise earnings, but these expectations (e.g., in case of overconfidence) may be inaccurate (Larkin and Leider, 2012).…”

Free to Choose: Testing the Pure Motivation Effect of Autonomous Choice

“…On each try, one ball from the box was randomly highlighted. 13 If the ball was red then the project was deemed successful and the subject received the prize written on the face of the ball. If it was blue, then if the subject had more tries available another ball was drawn; if all tries had been exhausted the project was deemed a failure which paid zero.…”

Self‐nudging contracts and the positive effects of autonomy—Analyzing the prospect of behavioral self‐management

“…Our subjects are more educated than average, which might increase their sensitivity and sophistication in self-managing their behavior, so our results may not apply equally well to a more representative sample of the population. Furthermore, 22 Chaudhry and Klinowski (2016), for example, fail to find an effect of contract choice, plausibly because they use a slider task which requires skill and accuracy.…”