IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v67y2008i3-4p794-809.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Performance measurement, expectancy and agency theory: An experimental study

Author

Listed:
  • Sloof, Randolph
  • van Praag, C. Mirjam

Abstract

Theoretical analyses of (optimal) performance measures are typically performed within the realm of the linear agency model. This model implies that, for a given compensation scheme, the agent’s optimal effort is unrelated to the amount of noise in the performance measure. In contrast, expectancy theory as developed by psychologists predicts lower effort levels for noisier performance measures. We conduct a real effort laboratory experiment and find that effort levels are invariant to changes in the distribution of the noise term, i.e. to expectancy. This suggests that enriching the economic (linear agency) model commonly applied within this area by including an expectancy parameter is not needed.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Sloof, Randolph & van Praag, C. Mirjam, 2008. "Performance measurement, expectancy and agency theory: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(3-4), pages 794-809, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:67:y:2008:i:3-4:p:794-809
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167-2681(07)00196-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Patrick Bolton & Mathias Dewatripont, 2005. "Contract Theory," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262025760, April.
    2. Claude Montmarquette & Jean-Louis Rullière & Marie-Claire Villeval & Romain Zeiliger, 2004. "Redesigning Teams and Incentives in a Merger: An Experiment with Managers and Students," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(10), pages 1379-1389, October.
    3. George Baker, 2002. "Distortion and Risk in Optimal Incentive Contracts," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 37(4), pages 728-751.
    4. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 2002. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1644-1655, December.
    5. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1987. "Aggregation and Linearity in the Provision of Intertemporal Incentives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 303-328, March.
    6. Wolfstetter,Elmar, 2000. "Topics in Microeconomics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521645348, September.
    7. Pingle, Mark, 1995. "Imitation versus rationality: An experimental perspective on decision making," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 281-315.
    8. Friedman,Daniel & Sunder,Shyam, 1994. "Experimental Methods," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521456821, September.
    9. van Dijk, Frans & Sonnemans, Joep & van Winden, Frans, 2001. "Incentive systems in a real effort experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 187-214, February.
    10. Robert M. Bushman & Raffi J. Indjejikian & Mark C. Penno, 2000. "Private Predecision Information, Performance Measure Congruity, and the Value of Delegation," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(4), pages 562-587, December.
    11. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1991. "Multitask Principal-Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(0), pages 24-52, Special I.
    12. Baron, David P, 1977. "On the Utility Theoretic Foundations of Mean-Variance Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(5), pages 1683-1697, December.
    13. Zabojnik, Jan, 1996. "Pay-performance sensitivity and production uncertainty," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 291-296, December.
    14. Srikant Datar & Susan Cohen Kulp & Richard A. Lambert, 2001. "Balancing Performance Measures," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 75-92, June.
    15. Loewenstein, George, 1999. "Experimental Economics from the Vantage-Point of Behavioural Economics," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(453), pages 23-34, February.
    16. Pingle, Mark, 1997. "Submitting to authority: Its effect on decision-making," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 45-68, February.
    17. Rothschild, Michael & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1970. "Increasing risk: I. A definition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 225-243, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Randolph Sloof & C. Mirjam van Praag, 2008. "The Effect of Noise in a Performance Measure on Work Motivation," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-074/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    2. Zubanov, Nick & Cadsby, Bram & Song, Fei, 2017. "The," IZA Discussion Papers 10542, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Michele Battisti & Giovanna Vallanti, 2013. "Flexible Wage Contracts, Temporary Jobs, and Firm Performance: Evidence From Italian Firms," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(3), pages 737-764, July.
    4. Bonsang, Eric & Dohmen, Thomas, 2015. "Risk attitude and cognitive aging," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 112-126.
    5. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Alexandros Karakostas, 2020. "An experimental investigation of the ‘tenuous trade-off’ between risk and incentives in organizations," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 88(1), pages 153-190, February.
    6. Emanuela Lezzi & Piers Fleming & Daniel John Zizzo, 2015. "Does it matter which effort task you use? A comparison of four effort tasks when agents compete for a prize," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 15-05, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    7. Francesca Magli & Alberto Nobolo & Matteo Ogliari, 2017. "Alternative Performance Measures and ESMA Guidelines: Improving Stakeholders’ Communication," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 12(12), pages 1-15, November.
    8. Zubanov, N.V., 2012. "Risk Aversion and Effort in an Incentive Pay Scheme with Multiplicative Noise: Theory and Experimental Evidence," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2012-005-STR, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    9. Sloof, Randolph & van Praag, C. Mirjam, 2010. "The effect of noise in a performance measure on work motivation: A real effort laboratory experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 751-765, October.
    10. Jacob Zureich, 2023. "The (Un)Controllability Principle: The Benefits of Holding Employees Accountable for Uncontrollable Factors," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 653-690, May.
    11. Michele Battisti & Giovanna Vallanti, 2011. "Flexible Wage Contracts, Temporary Jobs and Worker Performance: Evidence from Italian Firms," Working Papers CELEG 1105, Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, LUISS Guido Carli.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Randolph Sloof & C. Mirjam van Praag, 2008. "The Effect of Noise in a Performance Measure on Work Motivation," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-074/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    2. Sloof, Randolph & van Praag, C. Mirjam, 2010. "The effect of noise in a performance measure on work motivation: A real effort laboratory experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 751-765, October.
    3. Thiele, Veikko, 2007. "Task-Specific Abilities in Multi-Task Agency Relations," MPRA Paper 2470, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Zabel, Astrid & Roe, Brian, 2009. "Optimal design of pro-conservation incentives," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 126-134, November.
    5. Brice Corgnet & Roberto Hernán-González, 2019. "Revisiting the Trade-off Between Risk and Incentives: The Shocking Effect of Random Shocks?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(3), pages 1096-1114, March.
    6. Anthony M. Marino & Ján Zábojník, 2008. "Work‐related perks, agency problems, and optimal incentive contracts," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(2), pages 565-585, June.
    7. Alberto Bayo-Moriones & Jose E. Galdon-Sanchez & Sara Martinez-de-Morentin, 2017. "Performance Measurement and Incentive Intensity," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 38(4), pages 496-546, December.
    8. Barbara Schöndube-Pirchegger & Jens Robert Schöndube, 2015. "Full versus Partial Delegation in Multi-Task Agency," FEMM Working Papers 150017, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Faculty of Economics and Management.
    9. Oddvar M. Kaarbøe & Trond E. Olsen, 2008. "Distorted Performance Measures and Dynamic Incentives," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(1), pages 149-183, March.
    10. Gibbons, Robert, 2005. "Four forma(lizable) theories of the firm?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 200-245, October.
    11. Robert Gibbons, 2005. "Incentives Between Firms (and Within)," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(1), pages 2-17, January.
    12. Thiele, Veikko, 2010. "Task-specific abilities in multi-task principal-agent relationships," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 690-698, August.
    13. Dietrichson, Jens, 2013. "Coordination Incentives, Performance Measurement and Resource Allocation in Public Sector Organizations," Working Papers 2013:26, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    14. Thiele, Veikko, 2007. "Performance measurement in multi-task agencies," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 148-163, September.
    15. Michael Raith, 2008. "Specific knowledge and performance measurement," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(4), pages 1059-1079, December.
    16. Mathias Dewatripont & Patrick Legros, 2005. "Public-private partnerships: contract design and risk transfer," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/175947, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    17. Bellemare, Marc F., 2009. "The (Im)Possibility of Reverse Share Tenancy," MPRA Paper 23681, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Prasad, Kislaya & Salmon, Timothy C., 2013. "Self Selection and market power in risk sharing contracts," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 71-86.
    19. Arifovic, Jasmina & Karaivanov, Alexander, 2010. "Learning by doing vs. learning from others in a principal-agent model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 1967-1992, October.
    20. Brice Corgnet & Roberto Hernán-González & Eric Schniter, 2015. "Why real leisure really matters: incentive effects on real effort in the laboratory," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(2), pages 284-301, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:67:y:2008:i:3-4:p:794-809. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.