Firms are increasingly pursuing employees' participation programmes, yet field evidence on their impact on performance is scant. To study their effect on quality provision, we conduct a field experiment that exogenously determines whether workers participate or not in the design of a recognition scheme. With no awareness of being part of a research study, some workers vote on the scheme’s format and ranking system, whereas others have no voice. The results show that the scheme backfires without employees' participation: mistakes increase by around 50% in comparison with a control group and with employees who participated in the design of the scheme. The experiment also exogenously determines the timing of the onset and of the withdrawal of the recognition scheme, showing that adverse outcomes persist even after the scheme’s end. These adverse effects are driven by mistakes affecting the organization's management, rather than end-users or colleagues. Employees' performance responds directly to experimental manipulation and Hawthorne-type effects operate separately from the participation mechanism.
Price competition when behaviour is characterised by conformity or vanity: A comment.
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Work in progress
Contingent pay, participation and performance. (with Ginevra Marandola)
Organizations are increasingly pursuing employees' participation programmes, yet evidence on their impact on performance is scant. To study their effect on performance and multitasking, we conduct a laboratory experiment where subjects perform a real data-entry job either on a piece-rate or flat wage pay. The design varies whether subjects can vote for these compensation schemes or are randomly assigned. Participation reduces quality by 11% and increases speed by 17% of the mean under the piece rate scheme, but has no effect under the flat wage scheme. Subjects in the participation treatment enjoy the activity more. We introduce a mathematical model of the speed-accuracy trade-off from the cognitive sciences, which explains these effects’ magnitude.
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Peer pressure, feedback and performance: a lab-in-the-workplace experiment. (with Jose Javier Dominguez Ramirez, Giulio Ecchia, Ginevra Marandola, Raimondello Orsini)
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Self-assessment and quality provision in the workplace. (with Giulio Ecchia, Raimondello Orsini, Ginevra Marandola)