Pro-Social Missions and Worker Motivation: An Experimental Study

36 Pages Posted: 1 Apr 2012

See all articles by Sebastian Fehrler

Sebastian Fehrler

IZA; University of Konstanz - Faculty of Economics and Statistics; Unversity of Bremen, SOCIUM; University of Zurich, Center for Comparative and International Studies (CIS)

Michael Kosfeld

Goethe University Frankfurt; IZA Institute of Labor Economics; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute); University of Bonn - Center for Development Research (ZEF)

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: March 30, 2012

Abstract

Do employees work harder if their job has the right mission? In a laboratory labor market experiment, we test whether subjects provide higher effort if they can choose the mission of their job. We observe that subjects do not provide higher effort than in a control treatment. Surprised by this finding, we run a second experiment in which subjects can choose whether they want to work on a job with their preferred mission or not. A subgroup of agents (roughly one third) is willing to do so even if this option is more costly than choosing the alternative job. Moreover, we find that these subjects provide substantially higher effort. These results suggest that relatively few workers can be motivated by missions and that selection into mission-oriented organizations is important to explain empirical findings of lower wages and high motivation in the latter.

Keywords: motivation, effort provision, sorting, contract choice, lab experiment

JEL Classification: C92, J33, M52

Suggested Citation

Fehrler, Sebastian and Kosfeld, Michael, Pro-Social Missions and Worker Motivation: An Experimental Study (March 30, 2012). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2031818 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2031818

Sebastian Fehrler (Contact Author)

IZA ( email )

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

University of Konstanz - Faculty of Economics and Statistics ( email )

Universitaetsstr. 10
78457 Konstanz
Germany

Unversity of Bremen, SOCIUM ( email )

SOCIUM
Mary-Somerville-Str. 5
Bremen, +49
Germany

University of Zurich, Center for Comparative and International Studies (CIS) ( email )

Affolternstrasse 56
8050 Zurich
Switzerland

Michael Kosfeld

Goethe University Frankfurt ( email )

Faculty of Economics and Business Administration
Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 4
Frankfurt am Main, 60323
Germany

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Schaumburg-Lippe-Str. 7 / 9
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

London
United Kingdom

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute) ( email )

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

University of Bonn - Center for Development Research (ZEF) ( email )

Walter-Flex-Str. 3
Bonn, NRW 53113
Germany

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