Abstract
Social incentives like employee awards are widespread in the corporate sector and may be important instruments for solving agency problems. To date, we have little understanding of their effect on behavior. Unique panel data from the call center of a Fortune 500 financial services provider allow us to estimate the impact of awards on performance. Winning an award for voluntary work behaviors significantly increases subsequent core call center performance. The effect is short-lived, mainly driven by underperforming agents, and is reflected mostly in dimensions of the job that are hard to observe. We discuss various theories that could explain the effect.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 205-217 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Labour Economics |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue number | december |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Dec 2014 |