Intentions for Doing Good Matter for Doing Well: The (Negative) Signaling Value of Prosocial Incentives

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte.

Nonmonetary Incentives and the Implications of Work as a Source of Meaning

“…We propose to extend this basic neoclassical model to include work meaning as the third argument in the utility function, which then includes: the utility from income Y as a means to consumption, a cost C of providing effort (or foregoing utility from leisure), and the utility from meaningful work. Modeling the meaning of work as a separate term from effort cost is consistent with the interpretation of effort costs as preferences for leisure in a labor supply model and with previous theoretical work on intrinsic motivation (for example, Besley and Ghatak 2005;Delfgaauw andDur 2007, 2008;Cassar 2016). 1 Here we focus on the case where work meaning enters positively into the utility function, so that work is a source of intrinsic motivation.…”

“…Using national US surveys, Eden (1975) and Hundley (2001) find that self-employed workers are more satisfied with their jobs than employees, because their work provides more skill utilization in addition to autonomy and flexibility. Using a nationally representative survey in Chile, Cassar (2010) shows that feeling competent and autonomous in one's job increases satisfaction and can explain the utility premium from self-employment. In addition, experimental studies show that social recognition in the form of nonmonetary awards increases workers' effort.…”

“…It can also restrict firms' choice sets in terms of incentive schemes and monitoring activities. Tournaments and employee rankings are likely to increase pay inequalities, which undermines the bonds between co-workers (Cassar and Klein 2017) and can have negative consequences in terms of lower effort and antisocial behavior (Harbring and Irlenbusch 2011;Goette, Huffman, Meier, and Sutter 2012). Monitoring can be perceived as a lack of trust and undermine the sense of relatedness.…”

“…Finally, firm decisions about adding meaning might not only be about increasing effort, but about attracting certain types of agents. However, targeting motivated agents may not be simple, especially if the agents' preference over job meaning are unobservable (for examples, see Delfgaauw andDur 2007, 2008;Prendergast 2007;Cassar 2016). Delfgaauw and Dur (2008) show that if effort is unverifiable, nonmotivated workers will find public sector jobs highly attractive and may crowd out motivated workers.…”

Where Does the Good Shepherd Go? Civic Virtue and Sorting into Public Sector Employment

“…The construct of prosocial motivationand civic virtue in particularis closely related to the construct of mission preferences (Besley and Ghatak, 2005;Carpenter and Gong, 2016;Cassar, 2016Cassar, , 2018Cassar and Meier, 2017). A mission has been defined as a non-profit goal of an organization, in particular the goal of producing public goods, and is closely related to the construct of intrinsic motivation (Besley and Ghatak, 2005;Carpenter and Gong, 2016).…”