Incentive Effects of Assigned Goals and Compensation Schemes on Budgetary Performance

This study examines the combined effects of two management interventions, assigned goals and monetary compensation, on performance in a routine task. It investigates the effects of assigned goals (four goal levels: low, medium, high, impossible) and three types of compensation scheme (fixed-pay, piece-rate and budget-based). A laboratory experiment involving 180 undergraduate accounting students showed that, in some circumstances, assigned goals dominated performance effects while, in other circumstances, monetary incentives played a major role. Over medium to high levels of difficulty, assigned goals had a positive and dominating effect on performance, regardless of type of compensation. When the assigned goal was low, however, performance-contingent pay schemes had an additive effect on performance, while at an impossible goal level, budget-based incentives had a negative effect on performance. Of the interventions tested, the highest performance resulted from using incentive-based compensation when the budget (assigned goal) was relatively low (80% achievable).     

High and low performers' intention to leave: examining the relationship with motivation and commitment

By studying intrinsic sources of motivation, the current research extends theory development in the motivation and commitment field to examine when employees of varying performance intend to leave their organisation. Based upon a nation-wide study of retail banking employees in one of the largest Australian financial institutions (N = 784), we found that for high-performing employees with either a promotion focus or affective commitment, there was significantly reduced intention to leave. The relationship between affective commitment and intention to leave was not significantly strengthened by increases in promotion focus. Implications for development of theories focused on intrinsic sources of motivation and commitment as well as the practical implications for talent retention are discussed.     

6 strategies for building bundled payments

With 25 years of proven success, bundled payments are a logical step away from a flawed fee-for-service payment system that has rewarded additional and sometimes unnecessary procedures and driven up costs. The use of bundled payments is paying off for a growing number of providers and payers through lower costs and improved quality of care. The keys to success in bundling payments are innovation, a good cost-plus financial model, a comprehensive team of caregivers, and commitment to continual improvement and collaboration.     

Export-led growth: a survey of the empirical literature and some non-causality results. Part 2

This paper continues the investigation of Giles and Williams (2000) on export-led growth (ELG). In the first part, we surveyed the empirical export-led growth literature; it was evident that Granger non-causality tests are commonly applied as a test for ELG. In this paper, we explore the sensitivity of the test for exclusions restrictions often used as the Granger non-causality test for ELG by reconsidering two applications: Oxley's (1993) study for Portugal and Henriques and Sadorsky's (1996) analysis for Canada. We focus on the robustness of the method adopted to deal with non-stationarity, including the choice of deterministic trend degree. We show that different noncausality outcomes are easy to obtain, and consequently we recommend that readers interpret the empirical ELG literature with care. Our analysis also highlights the importance of examining the robustness of Granger non-causality test results to avoid spurious outcomes in applications.