What makes work meaningful and why economists should care about it

Nikolova, Milena; Cnossen, Femke

doi:10.1016/j.labeco.2020.101847

Cited by 81 publications

(102 citation statements)

References 94 publications

(132 reference statements)

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“…The Economist magazine (2015) published an article called "Digital Taylorism: A modern version of 'scientific management' threatens to dehumanise the workplace." 4 An interesting and open question is whether monetary incentives are likely to prove as effective in environments that are characterized by a high level of job meaning (including a sufficiently high wage that satisfies workers' need for both relatedness and competence). The answer depends on how much weight workers attribute to consumption relative to job meaning and how these terms enter into the utility functions.…”

Section: Paying Less For a Meaningful Job?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Cassar

Meier²

2018

Journal of Economic Perspectives

200

142

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Empirical research in economics has begun to explore the idea that workers care about nonmonetary aspects of work. An increasing number of economic studies using survey and experimental methods have shown that nonmonetary incentives and nonpecuniary aspects of one’s job have substantial impacts on job satisfaction, productivity, and labor supply. By drawing on this evidence and relating it to the literature in psychology, this paper argues that work represents much more than simply earning an income: for many people, work is a source of meaning. In the next section, we give an economic interpretation of meaningful work and emphasize how it is affected by the mission of the organization and the extent to which job design fulfills the three psychological needs at the basis of self-determination theory: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. We point to the evidence that not everyone cares about having a meaningful job and discuss potential sources of this heterogeneity. We sketch a theoretical framework to start to formalize work as a source of meaning and think about how to incorporate this idea into agency theory and labor supply models. We discuss how workers’ search for meaning may affect the design of monetary and nonmonetary incentives. We conclude by suggesting some insights and open questions for future research.

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Section: Paying Less For a Meaningful Job?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Cassar

Meier²

2018

Journal of Economic Perspectives

200

142

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The introduction of the performance bonus to field managers increased the overall productivity of their subordinates by about 25 percent. 3 These examples of piece rates, although telling, of course do not mean that piece rates always result in higher output, compensation, and profit. In settings where output and/or quality are not very observable, piece rates may not work well.…”

Section: Piece Rates and Continuous Output Incentivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Compensation and Incentives in the Workplace

Lazear

2018

Journal of Economic Perspectives

157

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Labor is supplied because most of us must work to live. Indeed, it is called “work” in part because without compensation, the overwhelming majority of workers would not otherwise perform the tasks. The theme of this essay is that incentives affect behavior and that economics as a science has made good progress in specifying how compensation and its form influences worker effort. This is a broad topic, and the purpose here is not a comprehensive literature review on each of many topics. Instead, a sample of some of the most applicable papers are discussed with the goal of demonstrating that compensation, incentives, and productivity are inseparably linked.

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“…Subjective well-being accounts at the national level now complement traditional economic measures of progress and development (Diener et al, 2010;Lyubomirsky et al, 2005). Subjective well-being is an instrumental indicator of work-related productivity and effectiveness (Oswald et al, 2015), business performance (Edmans, 2012;Harter et al, 2010), individual creativity (Ceci & Kumar, 2016), job-related behaviors (Nikolova & Cnossen, 2020), and overall health and longevity (Lawrence et al, 2015). This implies that subjective well-being indicators at the regional and national level capture the extent to which the population is healthy and productive, which has important immediate effects on health and prosocial behavior.…”

Section: Importance and Measurement Of National Subjective Well-beingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the Effects of Types of Early-Stage Entrepreneurial Activity on Subjective Well-Being

Svetek

Drnovšek

2021

J Happiness Stud

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Entrepreneurial activity has been seen as the single most important activity of individuals due to its role in the economic development of nations. However, little is known about the impact of entrepreneurial activity on the subjective well-being of nations beyond its economic impact. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of different types of entrepreneurial activity – total entrepreneurial activity, opportunity-driven entrepreneurial activity and innovative entrepreneurial activity – on subjective well-being across nations. We consider three distinct mechanisms by which entrepreneurship may influence subjective well-being at the national level. Our panel data includes representative country-level data from 2008 to 2015 from five different data sources for 31 European countries. We employ four econometric models for analyzing the panel data: pooled OLS regression (POLS), fixed effects model (FE), random effects model (RE), and simultaneous equations model (3SLS). Our results suggest that opportunity-driven entrepreneurial activity has a positive impact on subjective well-being. In addition, we find that subjective well-being affects the level of opportunity-driven and innovative entrepreneurial activity. These findings have implications for policy-makers seeking to promote not only economic development but also subjective well-being in the nation.

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What makes work meaningful and why economists should care about it

Cited by 81 publications

References 94 publications

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

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

Compensation and Incentives in the Workplace

Exploring the Effects of Types of Early-Stage Entrepreneurial Activity on Subjective Well-Being

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