The impact of workers' non-pecuniary motivation on their productivity is a fundamental issue in labor economics. Previous studies indicate that prosocially motivated workers may perform better when assigned to jobs having socially desirable implications - even if ef-fort is non-contractible and they are offered a low-powered fixed-compensation scheme - as compared to a standard job with an effort-contingent payment. This suggests that profit-maximizing employers should assign workers to different jobs, based on workers' prosociality. We run an experiment to explore the link between workers' prosociality and their level of effort under a prosocial and a standard job. Our experimental results provide some support to the hypothesis that selfish employers exploit the information on work-ers' prosociality to assign them the type of job that would be most profitable from the firm's perspective. However, the prosocial motivation of employers emerges as a second important determinant of their contract choice: employers' prosociality drives their con-tract choice, when the worker is not prosocial. & COPY; 2023 Published by Elsevier B.V.

The right person for the right job: workers’ prosociality as a screening device / Bigoni, Maria; Ploner, Matteo; Vu, Thi Thanh Tam. - In: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR & ORGANIZATION. - ISSN 0167-2681. - 212:(2023), pp. 53-73. [10.1016/j.jebo.2023.04.013]

The right person for the right job: workers’ prosociality as a screening device

Ploner, Matteo
Secondo
;
Vu, Thi-Thanh-Tam
Ultimo
2023-01-01

Abstract

The impact of workers' non-pecuniary motivation on their productivity is a fundamental issue in labor economics. Previous studies indicate that prosocially motivated workers may perform better when assigned to jobs having socially desirable implications - even if ef-fort is non-contractible and they are offered a low-powered fixed-compensation scheme - as compared to a standard job with an effort-contingent payment. This suggests that profit-maximizing employers should assign workers to different jobs, based on workers' prosociality. We run an experiment to explore the link between workers' prosociality and their level of effort under a prosocial and a standard job. Our experimental results provide some support to the hypothesis that selfish employers exploit the information on work-ers' prosociality to assign them the type of job that would be most profitable from the firm's perspective. However, the prosocial motivation of employers emerges as a second important determinant of their contract choice: employers' prosociality drives their con-tract choice, when the worker is not prosocial. & COPY; 2023 Published by Elsevier B.V.
2023
Bigoni, Maria; Ploner, Matteo; Vu, Thi Thanh Tam
The right person for the right job: workers’ prosociality as a screening device / Bigoni, Maria; Ploner, Matteo; Vu, Thi Thanh Tam. - In: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR & ORGANIZATION. - ISSN 0167-2681. - 212:(2023), pp. 53-73. [10.1016/j.jebo.2023.04.013]
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11572/401750
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