The term ‘incentive' (from Latin incentivum ‘something that sets the tune') is a tangible and/or intangible reward that motivates people and creates favorable environmental conditions to maximize performance to achieve specific goals in organization or competition and/or society

Drawing on two large German representative data sets, we analyze the role of works councils for the use of performance appraisals (PA). We distinguish between the incidence of performance appraisal systems as intended by the firm and their actual implementation on the level of the individual...

This paper studies a retail chain that introduced a sales incentive plan that rewarded for exceeding a sales target and subsequently cut the incentive intensity in addition to increasing the target. Utilizing monthly panel data for 54 months for all 53 units of the chain the paper shows that the...

This paper investigates the effects of managerial incentives on favoritism in promotion decisions. First, we theoretically show that favoritism leads to a lower quality of promotion decisions and in turn lower efforts. But the effect can be mitigated by pay-for-performance incentives for...

The adoption of performance related pay schemes has become increasingly popular in the public sector of several countries. In the UK, the scheme designers favoured collective performance pay with the aim to foster cooperation across offices. The resulting team structure included several offices...

Using ten waves (1998-2007) of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), this paper investigates the ceteris paribus association between the intensity of incentive pay, the dynamic change in bonus status and the utility derived from work. After controlling for individual heterogeneity biases,...

This paper explores performance measurement in incentive plans. Based on theory, we argue that differences in the nature of jobs between blue- and white-collar employees lead to differences in incentive systems. We find that performance measurement for white-collar workers is broader in terms of...

The adoption of performance related pay schemes has become increasingly popular in the public sector of several countries. In the UK, the scheme designers favoured collective performance pay with the aim to foster cooperation across offices. The resulting team structure included several offices...

Employers want motivated and productive employees. Are there ways to increase employee motivation without relying solely on monetary incentives, such as pay-for-performance schemes? One tool that has shown promise in recent decades for improving worker performance is setting goals, whether they...