IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nos/vgmu00/2008i4p72-104.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

False or Fitting Recognition? The Use of High Performance Bonuses in Motivating Organizational Achievements

Author

Listed:
  • Carolyn Heinrich

Abstract

This research undertakes a theoretical and empirical examination of high performance bonus systems in government, that is, incentive payments awarded by the federal government to state organizations or statewide programs to motivate and recognize high performance achievements. The paper draws from a multidisciplinary literature on incentives in organizations to first derive implications for the design and implementation of high performance bonus systems. An empirical analysis of the Workforce Investment Act performance bonus system and its effectiveness in recognizing and rewarding performance follows. The results of the theoretical and empirical investigation suggest that high performance bonus systems are more likely to encourage misrepresentation of performance and other strategic behaviors than to recognize and motivate exceptional performance or performance improvements.

Suggested Citation

  • Carolyn Heinrich, 2008. "False or Fitting Recognition? The Use of High Performance Bonuses in Motivating Organizational Achievements," Public administration issues, Higher School of Economics, issue 4, pages 72-104.
    • Handle: RePEc:nos:vgmu00:2008:i:4:p:72-104
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://vgmu.hse.ru/data/2010/12/31/1208180222/72-104%20%D0%A5%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BD%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%85.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Canice Prendergast, 1999. "The Provision of Incentives in Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 7-63, March.
    2. Gerald Marschke & Pascal Courty, 2000. "An Empirical Investigation of Gaming Responses to Performance Incentives," Discussion Papers 00-12, University at Albany, SUNY, Department of Economics.
    3. Robert Gibbons, 1998. "Incentives in Organizations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 115-132, Fall.
    4. Baker, George P, 1992. "Incentive Contracts and Performance Measurement," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(3), pages 598-614, June.
    5. James J. Heckman & Carolyn Heinrich & Jeffrey Smith, 2002. "The Performance of Performance Standards," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 37(4), pages 778-811.
    6. Kathryn H. Anderson & Richard V. Burkhauser & Jennie E. Raymond, 1993. "The Effect of Creaming on Placement Rates under the Job Training Partnership Act," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 46(4), pages 613-624, July.
    7. Avinash Dixit, 2002. "# Incentives and Organizations in the Public Sector: An Interpretative Review," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 37(4), pages 696-727.
    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. Maureen A. Pirog & Anne L. Buffardi & Colleen K. Chrisinger & Pradeep Singh & John Briney, 2009. "Are the alternatives to randomized assignment nearly as good? Statistical corrections to nonrandomized evaluations," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(1), pages 169-172.
    2. Carolyn J. Heinrich & Gerald Marschke, 2010. "Incentives and their dynamics in public sector performance management systems," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(1), pages 183-208.
    3. Donald Moynihan & Ivor Beazley, 2016. "Toward Next-Generation Performance Budgeting," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 25297.
    4. Homrighausen, Pia, 2014. "Differential pricing and private provider performance," IAB-Discussion Paper 201425, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    5. Carolyn J. Heinrich, 2008. "Advancing public sector performance analysis," Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(5), pages 373-389, September.

    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. Luis Garicano & Richard A. Posner, 2005. "Intelligence Failures: An Organizational Economics Perspective," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 151-170, Fall.
    2. Courty, Pascal & Marschke, Gerald, 2004. "A General Test of Gaming," CEPR Discussion Papers 4514, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Pierre Koning & C.J. Heinrich, 2009. "Cream-skimming, parking and other intended and unintended effects of performance-based contracting in social welfare services," CPB Discussion Paper 134, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    4. Carolyn J. Heinrich & Gerald Marschke, 2010. "Incentives and their dynamics in public sector performance management systems," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(1), pages 183-208.
    5. Karthik Muralidharan & Venkatesh Sundararaman, 2011. "Teacher Performance Pay: Experimental Evidence from India," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(1), pages 39-77.
    6. Garicano, Luis & Palacios-Huerta, Ignacio, 2005. "Sabotage in Tournaments: Making the Beautiful Game a Bit Less Beautiful," CEPR Discussion Papers 5231, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Pascal Courty & Gerald Marschke, 2004. "An Empirical Investigation of Gaming Responses to Explicit Performance Incentives," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(1), pages 23-56, January.
    8. Gerald Marschke & Pascal Courty, 2000. "An Empirical Investigation of Gaming Responses to Performance Incentives," Discussion Papers 00-12, University at Albany, SUNY, Department of Economics.
    9. Bushman, Robert M. & Smith, Abbie J., 2001. "Financial accounting information and corporate governance," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1-3), pages 237-333, December.
    10. Marchegiani, Lucia & Reggiani, Tommaso G. & Rizzolli, Matteo, 2011. "How Unjust! An Experimental Investigation of Supervisors' Evaluation Errors and Agents' Incentives," IZA Discussion Papers 6254, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Jean-Michel Plassard & Nhu Tran Thi Thanh, 2009. "Liberté de choix des élèves et concurrence des établissements : un survey de l'analyse du pilotage des systèmes éducatifs par les quasi-marchés," Revue d'économie industrielle, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(2), pages 99-130.
    12. 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.
    13. Neunzig, Alexander R., 2002. "Effiziente Fixlöhne, Arbeitsfreude und Crowding-Effekte," CSLE Discussion Paper Series 2002-03, Saarland University, CSLE - Center for the Study of Law and Economics.
    14. Timothy Besley & Maitreesh Ghatak, 2018. "Prosocial Motivation and Incentives," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 10(1), pages 411-438, August.
    15. Liu, Taoxiong & Zhou, Bihua, 2011. "Commitment and optimal incentive," MPRA Paper 35550, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 20 Dec 2011.
    16. Lucia Marchegiani & Tommaso Reggiani & Matteo Rizzolli, 2013. "Severity vs. Leniency Bias in Performance Appraisal: Experimental evidence," BEMPS - Bozen Economics & Management Paper Series BEMPS01, Faculty of Economics and Management at the Free University of Bozen.
    17. Derek Neal, 2002. "How Vouchers Could Change the Market for Education," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 25-44, Fall.
    18. Neunzig, Alexander R., 2002. "Effiziente Fixlohnverträge für arbeitsfreudige Arbeitnehmer mit Berichtspflichten," CSLE Discussion Paper Series 2002-05, Saarland University, CSLE - Center for the Study of Law and Economics.
    19. Kathryn Shaw, 2004. "The Human Resources Revolution: Is It a Productivity Driver?," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 4, pages 69-114, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Kunz, Alexis H. & Pfaff, Dieter, 2002. "Agency theory, performance evaluation, and the hypothetical construct of intrinsic motivation," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 275-295, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    public regulation;

    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:nos:vgmu00:2008:i:4:p:72-104. 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: Irina A. Zvereva (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://vgmu.hse.ru/ .

    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.