In the context of a basic, short-term data entry job, unannounced provision of public recognition to employees yielded an economically significant increase in performance. Results suggest that recognition works best when it is provided exclusively, but not too exclusively. The performance increases in exclusive recognition are mainly driven by strong positive responses of non-recipients, which is most likely due to conformity preferences.
In the context of a fruit producer in the UK, the introduction of managerial incentives provides evidence of positive effects on worker productivity. In this context, when managers' pay is linked to the firm's performance, their interests become more aligned with those of the firm, which ultimately translates into stronger alignment of incentives of the workers they manage since the managers can target their efforts to specific workers. This also sheds some light on how managerial incentives determine earnings inequality among workers.
This meta-analysis of field experimental evidence on firm-employee relationships finds strong evidence that financial incentive increase output, and that non-financial approaches and social relations also have important impacts. However, many important topics have not been studied yet using field experiments, including recruiting, worker promotion, and training.
For young firms, the effect of business training on hiring a first employee remains ambiguous, and more research is needed to understand the relationships behind job creation by entrepreneurs.
Effects of relative pay on effort and labour supply are being examined in the context of an Indian manufacturing plant where co-workers' wages are exogenously varied. Results forthcoming.
In the context of online developer tournaments this study found that added rivalry is likely to induce higher performance given that failing to exert effort will reduce the likelihood of winning a prize. Tournament organizers can leverage contest size, dividing competitors by ability, and opening entry to all, as policy tools to manipulate the performance of competitors, particularly when changes allow the reallocation of prize money.
In the context of an online software development tournament, intermediate disclosure policy increased information and signaling in
the innovation environment. Final disclosure promoted higher levels of entry and effort and independent experimentation; while it generated a diversity of approaches, this led to considerable effort devoted to suboptimal approaches and overall performance achieved.
In the context of consumer lending in South Africa, advertising content has significant effects on demand, even relative to price effects. However, it was very difficult to predict the effects of different advertising content, and highlights the psychological premise that context matters.
In the context of farming in Malawi, reducing risk did not induce an increase in demand for credit, contrary to theoretical predictions. These results highlight the difficulties in mitigating environmental risks to poor farmers and to increase investments in better technologies.
In the context of microfinance in Sri Lanka, high variance in returns may limit the willingness of banks to lend to microenterprises, but it remains a puzzle why incremental growth and reinvestment remains such a challenges as many firms have exhibited a high level of returns.
