09:30 - 11:00
Fri-PS4
Chair/s:
Annatina Aerne
Room: Room 101
Noémi Berlin - Feedback and cooperation: An Experiment on sorting behaviour
Lisa Spantig - Signaling effects of incentives: An experiment in a cooperative company
Annatina Aerne - How to achieve cooperation in employer referral networks
Signaling effects of incentives: An experiment in a cooperative company
Marvin Deversi 1, Lisa Spantig 2, 3
1 University of Cologne
2 RWTH Aachen University
3 University of Essex
Economists and management scholars have argued that the scope of incentives to increase cooperation in organizations is limited as their use signals the prevalence of free-riding among employees. This paper tests this hypothesis experimentally, using a sample of managers and employees from a large company with a cooperative culture. We exogenously vary whether managers are informed about prevailing cooperation levels among employees before they can set incentives to promote cooperation. Comparing informed versus uninformed incentive choices, the data reveals strong positive effects of incentives that are unaffected by the hypothesized signaling effect. The absence of such an effect seems related to the perception of managers’ intentions, a mitigating factor that has not been explored in the literature so far.