Team Incentives and Performance: Evidence from a Retail Chain

Friebel, Guido; Heinz, Matthias; Krueger, Miriam; Zubanov, Nick

doi:10.1257/aer.20160788

Cited by 185 publications

(111 citation statements)

References 72 publications

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“…Assigning workers to tasks optimally based on their relative advantages is a key lever through which good management drives productivity, and is critical to the overall success of firms. While much theory has been brought to bear on this topic (Costa, 1988;Holmstrom and Tirole, 1989;Lazear and Oyer, 2007), the empirical literature on evaluating the importance of task assignment within firms is relatively recent (Amodio and Martinez-Carrasco, 2018;Bandiera et al, 2007Bandiera et al, , 2009Burgess et al, 2010;Friebel et al, 2017;Hjort, 2014). To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to examine how idiosyncratic productivity shocks affect this task allocation process.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Management and Shocks to Worker Productivity

Adhvaryu

Kala

Nyshadham

2019

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The assignment of workers to tasks is an important feature of the organization of production within firms. We study how task allocation across workers changes in response to productivity shocks. Pairing hourly productivity data from a ready-made garments firm with granular data on exposure to particulate matter pollution, we show that productivity suffers as a result of pollution shocks; this effect is heterogeneous across workers and tasks. Managers respond by reassigning workers to tasks in which they perform better on average during shocks. This response is larger for managers who we identify, via survey-based measurement, as exhibiting greater managerial attention, and these same managers are also the ones who are most able to mitigate resulting productivity declines.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Management and Shocks to Worker Productivity

Adhvaryu

Kala

Nyshadham

2019

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“…Similarly, the significance of productivity spillovers between coworkers within teams has been demonstrated in various economic domains: examples are, among others, Kahane (2000, 2004), Kendall (2003), Franck and Nüesch (2010), and Alvarez et al (2011). Also, several field studies demonstrate the effects of peers on the productivity of workers, see for example Mas and Moretti (2009), Bandiera et al (2010), Chan et al (2014), and most recently Friebel et al (2017), who confirm the presence of significant complementarities between team members, here for the case of a retail chain. 7 Moreover, Herbst and Mas (2015) compare results from laboratory experiments with field studies and conclude that both yield similar estimates of peer effects.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 57%

Eigenvalue Productivity: Measurement of Individual Contributions in Teams

Müller¹,

Upmann²

2018

Proceedings

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While the output of a team is evident, the productivity of each team member is typically not readily identifiable. In this paper we consider the problem of measuring the productivity of team members. We propose a new concept of coworker productivity, which we refer to as eigenvalue productivity (EVP). We demonstrate the existence and uniqueness of our concept and show that it possesses several desirable properties. Also, we suggest a procedure for specifying the required productivity matrix of a team, and illustrate the operational practicability of EVP by means of three examples representing different types of the available data.

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“…Finally, our results relate to the broader literature on the role of performance pay in organizations (Lazear, 2000;Paarsch and Shearer, 2000;Shearer, 2004). Studies that contemporaneously vary worker incentive structure within a single firm are rare (with the exception of Bandiera et al 2007Bandiera et al , 2013Friebel et al 2017). We extend this literature by studying incentive design in mission-oriented organizations with staff that not only have multiple tasks, but may also be intrinsically motivated (Besley and Ghatak, 2005;Osterloh and Frey, 2000;Bowles and Polanina-Reyes, 2012) working sometimes in teams (Bandiera et al, 2010(Bandiera et al, , 2013.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 55%

Mission and the Bottom Line: Performance Incentives in a Multi-Goal Organization

Giné¹,

Mansuri²,

Shrestha³

2017

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The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

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Team Incentives and Performance: Evidence from a Retail Chain

Abstract: In a field experiment with a retail chain (1,300 employees, 193

Cited by 185 publications

References 72 publications

Management and Shocks to Worker Productivity

Management and Shocks to Worker Productivity

Eigenvalue Productivity: Measurement of Individual Contributions in Teams

Mission and the Bottom Line: Performance Incentives in a Multi-Goal Organization

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