Frontline workers' performance in prosocial tasks: evidence from a Lab-in-the-Field in Western India

Abstract

PurposeFrontline workers (FLWs) constitute a critical part of the implementation cadre within public policies, serving a significant role in the last-mile delivery of public goods and services. FLWs under public programs in low and middle-income countries like India are offered different compensation structures that range from full-time salaries, piece rate honorariums, contractual engagements, to no remuneration. Whilst the rationale for offering different compensations vary, are certain structures more successful in encouraging FLWs to perform a prosocial task? Further, can certain structures encourage FLWs to perform beyond the incentivized policy mandate?Design/methodology/approachInvestigating workers' prosocial effort within policy implementation, the authors conducted a randomized lab-in-the-field inquiry with 344 Anganwadi-based workers (workers under the nutrition policy) in western India. These FLWs were engaged to perform a novel real-effort task that was tied to different incentive structures and their performance was adjudged based on measurable quantity, effort and quality parameters.FindingsResults demonstrate that uncompensated workers invest the greatest amount of effort whilst compromising on task quality, and vice-versa for subjects receiving pay-for-performance compensation. Programs must account for policy focus when offering compensations: volunteer engagement may be counterproductive for quality focus and to the adherence to ancillary task mandates like nature/quality of beneficiary interaction. On the other hand, the distribution of products (like health goods) can rely on volunteer effort.Originality/valueThe study brings together various compensation schemes operating at the field level, under one study using an LFE methodology within the context of policy implementation in India.

Guest editorial: Payment for performance: comparing policy making, design and implementation in health, social care and education

“…This special issue gathers three types of comparative studies: cross-country comparisons (Zitti et al , 2023; Andersen, 2023), intra country comparisons (Aktas et al , 2023; Srinivasan and Sarin, 2023; Coelho et al , 2023; Dos Anjos et al , 2023) and world-wide meta-analysis from existing literature (Kristensen et al , 2023; Briganti et al, 2023 ). Authors carry out policy process analyses, employing qualitative, mixed methods and review techniques, combined with comparative analytical descriptive accounts.…”

“…Another block of four papers develops in depth single country studies, breaking the analysis into smaller analytical units in different locations, examining sub-national or sub-regional aspects or administrative variations within a country. They develop cases analysis of original or new data focusing on Turkey (Aktas et al , 2023), India (Srinivasan and Sarin, 2023) and Brazil (Coelho et al , 2023; Dos Anjos et al , 2023).…”

“…Srinivasan and Sarin (2023) analyse Community Health Workers' (CHW) prosocial effort within policy implementation of a health/nutrition program in West India using randomized lab-in-the-field inquiry with 344 Anganwadi workers. The study shows that there is no simplistic causation of incentives and effort related to prosocial tasks.…”