Please use this form to submit your study for inclusion into our database. It will be checked by a member of the Innovation Growth Lab team, who may be in contact to ask for more information. Your email address * Your name * Title * The name of the study Short summary 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. A brief description of the project's goals and its current state Abstract <p>This paper reports the results from a controlled field experiment designed to investigate the causal effect of unannounced, public recognition on employee performance. We hired more than 300 employees to work on a three-hour data-entry task. In a random sample of work groups, workers unexpectedly received recognition after two hours of work. We find that recognition increases subsequent performance substantially, and particularly so when recognition is exclusively provided to the best performers. Remarkably, workers who did not receive recognition are mainly responsible for this performance increase. Our results are consistent with workers having a preference for conformity and being reciprocal at the same time.</p> The full abstract of the study, if available Links https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/mnsc.2015.2291 Links to any published papers and related discussions Authors * Affiliations Academic and other institutes that the authors of the study are members of Delivery partner Organisations involved in delivering the trial, if appropriate Year Year Year199419951996199719981999200020012002200320042005200620072008200920102011201220132014201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026 Month MonthJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec Day Day12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031 Journal Journal publishing the study, if available Publication stage * Working Paper Published Ongoing Research Forthcoming Discussion Paper Research theme * Entrepreneurship Innovation Business Growth Country Country or countries where this study took place. Topics What sort of topics does the study cover? Sample attributes Hypotheses / research question Does unannounced recognition improve employee performance, and how does inclusive/exclusive recognition affect employees differently? Should all employees receive recognition, or is more differentiation desirable? Specifically, what is the effect of exclusive recognition for the best-performing workers on performance of workers who do not receive recognition? Sample Trial population and sample selection From November 2010 to May 2011, the researchers hired 363 people for a 3-hour data-entry job where 8 workers shared the same room, but worked individually. Workers were paid a flat wage of 25 euro and were not aware that they were taking part in an experiment. Work groups were randomly assigned to have the workers receive public recognition after two hours of work. Among the groups receiving recognition, the scarcity of recognition was varied. Number of treatment groups Size of treatment groups Group 1: 82 workers; Group 2: 95 workers; Group 3: 82 workers Size of control group Unit of analysis Clustered? Yes No Cluster details Trial attributes Treatment description Treatment group 1: the research assistant handed a thank-you card to each worker after the first of two periods of work were complete. Treatment group 2: the research assistant handed thank-you cards to only 3 of the 8 workers after the first of two periods of work were complete. Treatment group 3: only the best worker was given a thank-you card after after the first of two periods of work were complete. For treatment groups 2 and 3, workers were told that there were a scarcity of cards, hence workers did not expect additional cards at the end of the working session. Rounds of data collection Baseline data collection and method Job application providing information on demographics and educational background Data collection method and data collected Evaluation Outcome variables <p>Number of correct entries per minute.</p> Results <p>Providing public recognition has a positive effect on subsequent performance of workers. When all employees in a work group receive recognition, subsequent performance increases by about 5.2%. When public recognition is more exclusive (3 of 8 workers receive recognition), the estimated effect is larger, at about a 7.3% increase. Employees who do not receive the recognition are primarily responsible for the performance increase, and their performance rises by more than 10%. Meanwhile, recipients of the recognition increase performance by only 3.3%. When recognition is even more exclusive (1 of 8 workers receive recognition), the average treatment effect is slightly weaker, at about 5.6%, with non-recipients increasing performance by about 6.6%, while recipients' response is close to zero.</p> Intervention costs Not available. Cost benefit ratio Reference Bradler, C., Dur, R., Neckermann, S., & Non, A. (2016). Employee recognition and performance: A field experiment. Management Science, 62(11), 3085-3099. Citation for use in academic references
