Evaluating Form and Functionality of Pay‐for‐Performance Plans: The Relative Incentive and Sorting Effects of Merit Pay,Bonuses, and Long‐Term Incentives

Using two‐year longitudinal data from a large sample of US employees from a service‐related organization, the present study investigates the relative effects of three forms of pay‐for‐performance (PFP) plans on employees’ job performance (incentive effects) and voluntary turnover (sorting effects). The study differentiates between three forms of pay: merit pay, individual‐based bonuses, and long‐term incentives. By definition, these PFP plans have different structural elements that distinguish them from each other (i.e., pay plan form) and different characteristics (functionality), such as the degree to which pay and performance are linked and the size of the rewards, which can vary both within and across plan types. Our results provide evidence that merit raises have larger incentive and sorting effects than bonuses and long‐term incentives in multi‐PFP plan environments where the three PFP plans are operating simultaneously. Only merit pay has both incentive and sorting effects among the three PFP plans. The implications for the PFP‐related theory, as well as for the design and implementation of PFP plans, are discussed. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The taxation of bonuses and its effect on executive compensation and risk‐taking: Evidence from the UK experience

This paper explores the effects of a bonus tax adopted in the UK in December 2009 on the compensation structure of executives and on risk‐taking behavior in the financial sector. Excessive bonuses are blamed for encouraging risk taking and are regarded as one of the pull factors of the financial crisis. The British government attempted to reduce bonuses and accordingly bank risk taking by means of a special tax on cash‐based bonuses. Using a comprehensive dataset on executive compensation, we show that the introduction of the bonus tax decreased the net cash bonuses awarded to directors by about 40%, accompanied, however, by a simultaneous increases in other forms of pay leaving total compensation as well as risk levels unaffected.     

限购政策对城市住房市场的调控效应分析——以天津市为例

为评估限购政策对城市住房市场的调控效应,借助灰色系统理论的灰色关联分析法构建数学模型,以天津市为例,对限购政策实施前后城市住房市场的变动情况进行了比较分析。结果显示,与限购政策实施前相比,天津市的住宅现房销售面积、住宅期房销售面积在时间上均出现了明显的滞后;住宅施工面积在时间上则未明显的变化;住宅投资完成额和住宅新开工面积在时间上则有少许提前。由此可以认为,限购政策的实施引起了住房市场供需双方行动方向的分异,降低了需求者群体的住房需求量,加快了供应者群体的供应速度,增加了市场住房供应量。     

Scarcity, regulation and endogenous technical progress

This paper studies to which extent a firm using a scarce resource input and facing environmental regulation can still manage to have a sustainable growth of output and profits. The firm has a vintage capital technology with two complementary factors, capital and a resource input subject to quota, the latter being increasingly scarce through an exogenously rising price. The firm can scrap obsolete capital and invest in adoptive and/or innovative R&D resource-saving activities. Within this realistic framework, we first characterize long-term growth regimes driven by scarcity (induced-innovation) vs. long-term growth regimes driven by quota regulation (Porter-like innovation). More importantly, we study the interaction between scarcity and quota regulation. In particular, we show that there exists a threshold level for the growth rate of the resource price above which the Porter mechanism is killed while the scarcity-induced growth regime may emerge. Symmetrically, we also find that there must exist a threshold value for the environmental quota under which the growth regime induced by scarcity vanishes while the Porter-like growth regime may survive.     

Well It’s Only Fair: How Perceptions of Manager Discretion in Bonus Allocation Affect Intrinsic Motivation

Perceptions of manager discretion in incentive allocation are theoretically and practically important to help explain the much‐debated relationship between performance‐related bonuses and intrinsic motivation. We argue, and demonstrate, that perceived managerial discretion is a key moderator to this relationship because of its relevance to procedural fairness. In a first study, we developed a measure for perceived manager discretion and distinguished it from related concepts. In a second experiment, we found that higher bonuses associated with higher levels of perceived manager discretion enhanced procedural fairness but those based on lower discretion did not. In a third field study, we found that actual bonuses implemented by a service organization enhanced intrinsic motivation indirectly through procedural fairness, but only when employees perceived their bonus to be based on higher levels of perceived manager discretion. Conversely, when bonus level was associated with lower perceived manager discretion, it negatively predicted of intrinsic motivation.     

创业投资企业优惠政策的思考

本公司位于高新技术产业开发区,是一家具有一般纳税人资格的生产销售企业,由公司出资设立一家创业投资企业,公司100%控股;收购公司持有的GN公司30%和JX公司31.82%的股份,而GN公司为高新技术企业且未上市;有效的运用我国执行的创业投资企业税收优惠政策:创业投资公司投资于未上市中小高新技术企业2年以上(含2年),可按其对中小高新技术企业投资额的70%抵扣该创业投资企业的应纳税所得额;符合条件的居民企业之间的股息、红利等权益性投资收益为免税收入;可以增加公司的税后收益。取得降低公司整体税负的效果。     

On the effects of incentive framing on bribery: evidence from an experiment in Burkina Faso

While incentive framing has been shown to promote workers’ effort, little is known about how it affects other dimensions of the employer-employee relationship. This paper examines whether incentive framing can also influence workers propensity to engage in an activity disloyal to their employer: corruption. To do so, we conducted an experiment in which graders are offered a bribe to report a better grade. Three treatments are conducted by framing economically equivalent contracts as menus of bonuses, penalties, or bonuses and penalties. We find that graders are more corrupt when incentives are framed as a combination of bonuses and penalties, while no difference is found between the bonus and the penalty contracts. These results are inconsistent with both standard economic theory and labor reciprocity.     

Some insights into customer orientation: an investigation of salespeople in Taiwan

Despite the claim that prosocial service behavior ratings influence sales performance (SP), an empirical discrepancy exists in relating prosocial service behavior ratings to actual SP. Furthermore, studies have seldom considered prescribed role and prosocial service behaviors together as important factors in influencing customer attitudes and SP. This article fills this void by examining the relative contribution of prescribed role and prosocial service behavior. Effective triadic data from 37 sales managers, 418 business customers, and 122 SP archives are used for exploring the relationships between customer-oriented behaviors and customer outcomes [customer satisfaction (CS) and loyalty intent] and percentage of sales quota attained. The principal results generally indicate that business customers place greater values on prosocial service behavior in predicting SP and CS, and that CS partially mediates the relationship between prescribed role service behavior and outcome variables.     

Altruism and Relational Incentives in the Workplace

This paper studies how altruism between managers and employees affects relational incentive contracts. To this end, we develop a simple dynamic principal–agent model where both players may have feelings of altruism or spite toward each other. The contract may contain two types of incentives for the agent to work hard: a bonus and a threat of dismissal. We find that altruism undermines the credibility of a threat of dismissal but strengthens the credibility of a bonus. Among others, these two mechanisms imply that higher altruism sometimes leads to higher bonuses, whereas lower altruism may increase productivity and players' utility in equilibrium.     

Compensation as a signal of organizational culture: the effects of advertising individual or collective incentives

Beyond their impact on current employees, compensation systems are thought to convey important messages about an organization's values and practices to potential hires, but explicit empirical support for this belief is scant. In two experiments, US participants evaluated recruiting advertisements containing simple statements about bonuses, with performance basis manipulated between-subjects in the first experiment and within-subjects in the second. Advertising bonuses based on individual performance caused an organization to be perceived as likely to have a more individualist culture, whereas bonuses based on team or organizational performance led to perceptions of a more collectivist culture. When participants in the second study were asked to choose between hypothetical jobs at organizations with different advertised compensation systems, the relation between individual differences and job preference was contingent on their organizational culture perceptions. In contrast to previous research, no modal preference for individual over collective rewards was observed.     

A “quota silo” or positive equality reach? The equality impact of gender quotas on corporate boards in Norway

10 years after its implementation, we explore the equality reach of the 40% Norwegian gender quota regulation for boards of public limited companies (PLCs) using a multi‐strategy approach (administrative data and interviews with women directors) to capture interrelated macro and meso changes. We employ Acker's (2006) inequality regimes as our analytical framework, augmented by the “equality reach” concept. We found strong compliance with the 40% Quota. However, there was little evidence of voluntary spillover to limited companies as envisaged by Quota proponents; instead Quota coverage reduced as some PLCs changed status to avoid the Quota requirement. We reveal that positive equality reach in one of the most equal countries in the world is confined to a PLC “quota silo,” which has shrunk over the life of the Quota. Moreover, we suggest that PLC high levels of compliance may be a defensive strategy seen as necessary in the regulatory/high sanction context of the Quota. We demonstrate the need for further political and organisational interventions to improve equality reach beyond the quota silo. We also show the value of the equality reach concept for research on equality interventions and warn of the dangers of an intervention leading to an equality silo.     

谈推行限额设计,控制工程造价

通过论述限额设计的原则及含义,推行限额设计,体现工程建设项目中技术与经济的相互关系,提出加强限额设计进而控制工程造价的一些措施。最终实现工程造价合理有效控制。     

Hitting the Jackpot or Hitting the Skids: Entertainment, Poverty, and the Demand for State Lotteries

A bstract .   State-sponsored lotteries are a lucrative source of revenue. Despite their low payout rates, lotteries are extremely popular, particularly among low-income citizens. State officials laud the benefits of lottery proceeds and promote the fun and excitement of participation. This entertainment value is one explanation for lottery demand by the poor: individuals with lower incomes substitute lottery play for other entertainment. Alternatively, low-income consumers may view lotteries as a convenient and otherwise rare opportunity for radically improving their standard of living. Bad times may cause desperation, and the desperate may turn to lotteries in an effort to escape hardship. This study tests these competing explanations. We examine lottery sales data from 39 states over 10 years and find a strong and positive relationship between sales and poverty rates. In contrast, we find no relationship between movie ticket sales, another inexpensive form of entertainment, and poverty rates.     

烟草商业企业物流成本定额管理探析

系统介绍了WS烟草物流分公司物流成本定额管理体系的运行情况,对成本定额体系最终制定形成的过程和成本定额在提升物流质效中如何发挥作用进行了详细阐述。然后针对该公司物流成本管控的现状和存在的问题,提出建立物流成本定额管理体系,以实现企业物流的降本增效。     

施工项目管理的基础-施工企业定额

随着我国工程建设市场的不断发展,施工企业定额在项目管理中的作用日益显现,通过对施工项目管理和施工企业定额的概念、具体活动、作用等各方面的分析,特别强调了施工企业定额在项目管理中的基础作用及编制方法,以促进施工企业定额的建设。     

Corporate social responsibility,durable‐goods and firm profitability

Utilizing a two‐period durable‐goods framework, we show that in uncommitted sales markets a firm may earn higher profits as it increases its level of corporate social responsibility (CSR). We find that this occurs even though CSR has no direct impact other than increasing the durable‐goods firm's manufacturing costs. We show that in sales markets, CSR may allow the firm to credibly commit itself to lower production in the future. This, in turn, can enhance their profits even though the CSR activities are costly and provide no direct demand or marketing benefit in our model. This is important because it provides another, hereto unexplored, strategic rationale for the willingness of profit‐maximizing firms to undertake costly CSR activities. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The challenges of using ranks to estimate sales

Researchers have frequently used data on product ranks to estimate nonpublic sales quantities, believing that there is a power-law-induced linear relationship between logged sales ranks and logged sales. Using essentially complete data on book sales, the most commonly used product in this literature, we find that the (double-logged) relationship between sales ranks and quantity sold is not linear, but robustly concave. We demonstrate that this concavity is likely to cause very poor sales predictions in many instances. We provide two concrete examples where applying this linear method to the concave relationship has led to serious errors in sales estimates. First, in the claim that the Internet's greater product variety in books has a large positive impact on social welfare, and second, in a claim about relative sales levels in top 20 and top 50 music “charts.” We also explore the use of nonlinear specifications as an alternative method to predict sales from ranks and find a simple specification that provides much better sales estimates. Finally, we examine the possibility that a particular type of biased sample might allow reasonable linear estimates of industry sales and conclude that it is possible but quite unlikely.     

Inefficient incentives and nonprice allocations: Experimental evidence from big‐box restaurants

Queues are puzzling because they are consistent with wasted profit in equilibrium. Standard rationales trace the puzzle to the pricing of goods. This article uses field experimental evidence from large‐scale restaurants to trace the puzzle to the pricing of labor. The customary wage contract in these settings fosters congestion and longer queues because it can encourage workers to emphasize the quality rather than quantity of output. To study this problem, the field experiment pays waiters bonuses for customer volume on days with excess demand, in addition to the tips and hourly wages they customarily receive. The experimental contract shortens queues substantially, generating surplus gains for consumers with no discernible cost in terms of perceived service quality. Workers earn more via the bonuses and because they earn more in tips. Short‐run profits increase by at least 49%. There is no discernible reduction in long‐run profit. The firm reverted to the baseline contract on excess demand days after many months of evidence, even after acknowledging the gains from the experimental contract. The evidence suggests the puzzle may partly be explained by inefficient wage contracting.     

Experienced and Novice Investors: Does Environmental Information Influence Investment Allocation Decisions?

Economic Value Added (EVA) is a performance measure that is being used by an increasing number of companies, but academic research on EVA is limited. In addition, all prior empirical academic studies on EVA have used the firm as the unit of analysis. In this study, we examine the effect of EVA on the performance of individual managers. Specifically, we examine whether managers on EVA-based bonus plans outperform managers on traditional accounting-based bonus plans. We are able to test this because we have access to an EVA-focused company that has managers on both EVA and traditional bonus plans. Our results suggest that managers on EVA bonus plans who understand the EVA concept perform better than managers on traditional bonus plans. However, we find some evidence that the increase in performance results from increased consistency or congruence in the manager's evaluation–reward process rather than from superiority of EVA as a performance measure. Also, we find that the effect of EVA bonuses and EVA understanding differs depending on the area of the firm in which the manager is employed. This suggests that EVA may not be a universally appropriate base for reward systems. *Mohan Lal passed away 24 July 2002. This paper is dedicated to him.     

商业模式创新与审计收费——基于线上销售的视角

考察企业线上销售这一商业模式创新对审计收费的影响，基于2009—2020年我国全部A股上市公司的年报数据，利用Python语言构建企业开展线上销售的度量指标，实证研究发现,企业开展线上销售会使得审计收费显著增加,该结论在经过一系列稳健性检验后仍然成立。从机制检验结果来看，线上销售增加了审计风险，导致审计师采取更多的应对措施，从而提高了审计收费。异质性分析结果表明，“四大”事务所、具有行业专长以及具有较高信息技术水平的审计师审计会削弱线上销售对审计收费的正向影响。总之，厘清了线上销售这一商业模式创新对上市公司审计收费的影响及作用机制，加深了关于商业模式创新对企业经营及审计行为影响的认识，同时也为推动审计行业转型发展提供了有益启示。