The Effects of Performance Measurement and Compensation on Motivation: An Empirical Study

Summary This paper analyzes empirically the relationship between pay and performance. Economic and psychological theories predict that the design and implementation of a performance measurement and compensation system affect the motivation of employees. Our survey results demonstrate a positive relationship between the perceived characteristics of the complete compensation system and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is not affected by the design of monetary compensation, but by promotion opportunities. The compensation system also significantly affects work satisfaction and turnover intent. Our results have both managerial as well as policy implications. We would like to thank the organization and the participants of the 2002 conference of the Performance Measurement Association in Boston for helpful discussions and also seminar participants of the Dutch Labor Market Conference. We are grateful for the comments provided by Bruno S. Frey. The paper has also significantly benefited from the suggestions and comments of two anonymous referees.     

创新自我效能感对员工关联绩效的影响：组织支持感的调节作用

当组织中的员工对在工作中能否取得创新的方法和创造性的成果的信念有着清晰的认知时,是否会影响他们的关联绩效?另外,当员工对组织支持有不同程度的感知时,其影响程度会一样吗?通过随机样本调查方式,获取了安徽省境内三个城市中261名企业研发人员的有效问卷。层次回归分析结果表明,创新自我效能对关联绩效存在显著的正向预测作用且组织支持感在两者的关系中起到了正向的调节作用。     

Designing Internal Controls: The Interaction between Efficiency Wages and Monitoring*

Abstract. I examine how an internal auditor, called the firm, designs a control system for a strategic employee who conditions his thefts on the amount and types of controls. Society sets minimum testing amounts and fines for detected theft, whereas the firm determines the employee's wages and the amount of monitoring above the minimum. The results fall into three separate cases. When society's minimum testing standards and fines are sufficiently high, the employee never steals in any period. In this case, the firm performs the minimum amount of testing and pays the lowest feasible wage. In the remaining two cases, the testing standard and fines are too low to prevent theft by themselves. In these two cases the firm's control system determines whether there will be theft in the first period. I show that if the firm chooses to prevent all first-period theft, then it uses only one type of control. She offers a wage premium and monitors the minimum amount. The wage premium substitutes for a tine large enough to prevent all theft. If the firm designs controls that do not prevent all theft, then the firm also uses only one control. In contrast to the no-theft case, the firm pays the lowest feasible wage and monitors above the minimum. This choice reflects the increasing returns to scale of monitoring in preventing theft.     

Tax Planning and the Exercise of Employee Stock Options*

This paper analyzes tax planning by holders of employee stock options and examines their response to a proposed tax rate increase. Consistent with tax planning, the frequency of exercise is greater for employees affected by the tax change than for (1) employees unlikely to be affected by the tax increase who contemporaneously held identical options, and (2) employees with comparable incomes who held similar options in other years. Despite the greater frequency of exercise, less than one-third of the option holders who would benefit most from exercise for tax reasons chose to exercise early.     

基于心理收入的知识型员工激励与企业绩效关系研究

文章在考虑心理收入的前提下,建立了企业和知识型员工之间的委托代理模型,通过在不同心理收入水平下比较企业的业绩提成比例和员工的努力程度,分析了知识型员工激励与企业绩效的关系,研究结果表明要提高企业绩效就要进行旨在提高知识型员工心理收入的激励管理,同时要聘用满足岗位工作环境的知识型员工。得出了知识型员工面对完全满意的工作环境时的努力程度是在面对完全不接受的工作环境时的2倍。研究结果有助于企业在考虑知识型员工心理收入的同时合理建立更加有效的工资合同,为企业节约薪酬成本,提高企业绩效提供了定量方法和理论依据。     

国有企业的扩张行为:动机及效应

文章通过建立国企的效用最大化的目标函数,揭示其包含了来自市场激励和政府激励的多元化目标,其中规模最大化是效用最大化的最近似的可量化目标,其能够包括并同时满足国企追求的其它效用目标。本文表明了国企持续超常的规模扩张是建立在长期高额负债率和利润率显著低下的基础上,证实了国企不仅缺乏融资约束,也缺乏市场竞争约束。由于这两个基本约束的软化,导致企业过度膨胀,超过了正常合理水平。由于规模庞大且层级结构复杂,还会加剧了企业的难以监控的"黑箱"行为。这种机制可能诱发腐败,还导致一系列不良效应,包括产能过剩,僵尸企业,垄断势力强化,企业成本剧增等等。对于市场约束的缺位,合理的解决路径是加强市场约束,而不是加强行政约束。改革的选择方向是,实行分类改革,对于面向市场的企业,需要在利益相关者之间通过合理契约来实现市场激励和约束。     

三种社会交换关系对不同维度员工沉默的影响

沉默是一个基于复杂动机的复杂行为,不同维度的员工沉默行为由于动因不同,可能影响因素并不相同。文章基于社会交换理论,分别以组织支持、领导-下属交换和同事支持衡量员工与组织、上级和同事的社会交换关系水平,通过对107名员工的调查发现,组织支持和领导-下属交换对漠视沉默有负向影响,领导-下属交换对默许沉默有负向影响,而同事支持对防御沉默有负向影响。研究结果进一步丰富了员工沉默的相关理论,也有利于企业采取针对性措施促进员工建言。     

非正式组织对员工工作绩效影响的研究

非正式组织广泛存在于企业内部且对现代企业发挥着越来越重要的影响,在我国非正式组织的作用还未受到重视。本文从非正式组织结构特征入手,运用社会网络分析方法,在员工个体层次围绕非正式组织网络结构对员工的绩效产生影响。以案例研究的方式,运用Ucinet和SPSS软件对数据进行分析,研究结果发现非正式组织咨询网络中心性对任务绩效、人际促进、关系奉献有显著正向影响,非正式组织友谊网络中心性对任务绩效、人际促进有显著正向影响。     

Auditors' Fee Premiums and Low‐Quality Internal Controls*

We examine the relation between low‐quality internal controls and audit fee premiums. Using a novel data set of audit hours and audit fees we find, consistent with the audit risk model, that auditors increase their effort (hours) owing to low internal control quality. We find that auditors also charge a significant fee premium to clients with internal control weaknesses. This premium is observed for severe internal control weaknesses and companies with low‐quality alternative governance mechanisms. The results are robust to multiple methods to address endogeneity, including company fixed effects, difference‐in‐differences design, and a propensity score‐matched sample. Taken as a whole, low internal control quality leads to fee premiums, which are a deadweight loss to client companies.     

Stock Price Reactions to the Repricing of Employee Stock Options*

We study whether the repricing of employee stock options is in the best interests of common shareholders by examining the excess stock returns associated with timely, noncontamin‐ated repricing announcements made by Canadian firms. On the basis of three theories of why firms reprice, we develop competing predictions about the mean announcement‐date excess stock return and the cross‐sectional relations among excess stock returns, the estimated probability of repricing, and proxies for predictions from each theory. For a sample of 72 noncontaminated repricing announcements made by Canadian firms between November 1994 and July 2001, we find a reliably positive three‐day announcement‐date mean excess return of 4.9 percent. The results of our cross‐sectional analyses suggest that the market responds favorably to repricings because they assist in retaining key employees even though, at the margin, they enable managers to extract rents from shareholders. We do not find sufficient statistically significant evidence to reliably conclude that repricings are done to realign employee incentives.     

The Effect of Public Infrastructure on Cost Structure and Performance of Chinese Provinces*

This paper estimates a translog cost function for 29 Chinese provinces between 1979 and 2018. The results imply that investment in public infrastructure reduces costs in all provinces. Comparing the estimated rate of return to infrastructure with the rate of return to private capital, our results indicate underinvestment for the initial period after the economic reforms; however, after 2010 our results show overinvestment in infrastructure. Infrastructure capital is a substitute input to labor, private capital and intermediate inputs. Finally, public infrastructure growth contributes positively to labor and total factor productivity growth, but the effect is small. The growth of private capital and intermediate inputs are the most important factors that boost the growth of labor productivity.     

The Effects of Creative Culture on Real Earnings Management*

Creativity and innovation have been identified by senior executives as some of the most desired characteristics of corporate culture. Accordingly, managers strive to build these cultures within their organizations. However, research in psychology suggests that these attempts may have unintended negative consequences. In this study, I predict and find that managers in a more (versus less) innovative company culture will engage in higher levels of real earnings management (REM). I then test two construal level theory (CLT)-based interventions designed to reduce REM. As I predict, I find that in more innovative corporate cultures an intervention that makes downside risk more salient reduces REM, but an intervention that encourages managers to consider the “big-picture” impact of their decision reduces REM to a greater extent. Unexpectedly, I also find that the effect of the “big-picture” intervention reverses in a less innovative corporate culture leading to an increase in REM. My findings contribute to the emerging accounting literature regarding REM. I also extend the psychology literature investigating the link between opportunistic behavior and creativity, and I also expand research into how interventions based on CLT can affect judgment and decision making in an accounting context.