IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ratsoc/v6y1994i3p334-352.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Intrinsic Motivation is Crowded out and in

Author

Listed:
  • BRUNO S. FREY

    (University of Zurich)

Abstract

External interventions have a significant and systematic effect on preferences: Under specific conditions they crowd an individual's intrinsic motivation in or out. Rewards given or regulations applied by a principle are more likely to crowd out an agent's inner preference for a certain task. The more personal the relation between the two actors is, the more interesting the agent finds the task and the more extensive an agent's participation possibilities are. Empirical evidence supports the claim that, in many cases, agents, indeed, react to an external motivation by reducing their effort to fulfill a certain duty. This points to new limits of pricing as well as regulating, even though the price mechanism does not destroy intrinsic motivation to the same extent because it is less restrictive than regulation.

Suggested Citation

  • Bruno S. Frey, 1994. "How Intrinsic Motivation is Crowded out and in," Rationality and Society, , vol. 6(3), pages 334-352, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:6:y:1994:i:3:p:334-352
    DOI: 10.1177/1043463194006003004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1043463194006003004
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1043463194006003004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 841-864, October.
    2. repec:bla:scandj:v:86:y:1984:i:3:p:301-13 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Hirshleifer, Jack, 1985. "The Expanding Domain of Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(6), pages 53-68, December.
    4. Frey, Bruno S, 1993. "From Economic Imperialism to Social Science Inspiration," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 77(1), pages 95-105, September.
    5. Masahiko Aoki, 2013. "Toward an Economic Model of the Japanese Firm," Chapters, in: Comparative Institutional Analysis, chapter 18, pages 315-341, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Pommerehne, Werner W. & Frey, Bruno S., 1992. "The effects of tax administration on tax morale," Discussion Papers, Series II 191, University of Konstanz, Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 178 "Internationalization of the Economy".
    7. Hirschman, Albert O, 1982. "Rival Interpretations of Market Society: Civilizing, Destructive, or Feeble?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 20(4), pages 1463-1484, December.
    8. Alchian, Armen A & Demsetz, Harold, 1972. "Production , Information Costs, and Economic Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(5), pages 777-795, December.
    9. Lane,Robert E., 1991. "The Market Experience," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521407373.
    10. Kapteyn, Arie & Wansbeek, Tom, 1985. "The individual welfare function : A review," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 333-363, December.
    11. Frey, Bruno S & Buhofer, Heinz, 1988. "Prisoners and Property Rights," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(1), pages 19-46, April.
    12. Fama, Eugene F & Jensen, Michael C, 1983. "Separation of Ownership and Control," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(2), pages 301-325, June.
    13. Cropper, Maureen L & Oates, Wallace E, 1992. "Environmental Economics: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(2), pages 675-740, June.
    14. Pollak, Robert A, 1970. "Habit Formation and Dynamic Demand Functions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(4), pages 745-763, Part I Ju.
    15. Frey, Bruno S, 1993. "Does Monitoring Increase Work Effort? The Rivalry with Trust and Loyalty," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 31(4), pages 663-670, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Dickinson, David & Villeval, Marie-Claire, 2008. "Does monitoring decrease work effort?: The complementarity between agency and crowding-out theories," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 56-76, May.
    2. Sunny Sun & Xia Zhao & Haibin Yang, 2010. "Executive compensation in Asia: A critical review and outlook," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 27(4), pages 775-802, December.
    3. Crosno, Jody L. & Tong, Pui Ying, 2018. "Just going through the motions? An empirical investigation of control, compliance, and performance in franchisor-franchisee relationships," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 360-373.
    4. Frey, Bruno S., 1997. "On the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic work motivation1," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 427-439, July.
    5. Romaniuc, Rustam, 2017. "Intrinsic motivation in economics: A history," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 56-64.
    6. Luc Laeven & Christopher Woodruff, 2007. "The Quality of the Legal System, Firm Ownership, and Firm Size," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(4), pages 601-614, November.
    7. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, 2006. "Environmental Morale and Motivation," CREMA Working Paper Series 2006-17, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    8. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 1998. "The Governance of the New Enterprise," CRSP working papers 487, Center for Research in Security Prices, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
    9. Alley Ibrahim S. & Adebayo Abimbola L. & Oligbi Blessing O., 2016. "Corporate Governance and Financial Performance Nexus: Any Bidirectional Causality?," International Journal of Management and Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of World Economy, vol. 50(1), pages 82-99, June.
    10. Fiet, James O., 2001. "The theoretical side of teaching entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 1-24, January.
    11. Garicano, Luis & Hubbard, Thomas N, 2007. "Managerial Leverage Is Limited by the Extent of the Market: Hierarchies, Specialization, and the Utilization of Lawyers' Human Capital," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 50(1), pages 1-43, February.
    12. Kvaløy, Ola & Olsen, Trond E., 2016. "Teams in Relational Contracts," Discussion Papers 2016/23, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    13. Gatignon, Aline & Gatignon, Hubert, 2010. "Erin Anderson and the Path Breaking Work of TCE in New Areas of Business Research: Transaction Costs in Action," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 232-247.
    14. Azzeddine Allioui & Badr Habba & Taib Berrada El Azizi, 2023. "The Dilemma between the Pursuit of Sustainability and the Cultural Heritage of Moroccan Family Businesses: A Contextualization Study," RAIS Conference Proceedings 2022-2024 0272, Research Association for Interdisciplinary Studies.
    15. Burdin, Gabriel & Dughera, Stefano & Landini, Fabio & Belloc, Filippo, 2023. "Contested Transparency: Digital Monitoring Technologies and Worker Voice," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1340, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    16. David Gindis, 0. "On the origins, meaning and influence of Jensen and Meckling’s definition of the firm," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 72(4), pages 966-984.
    17. Jeffrey A. Flory & Andreas Leibbrandt & John A. List, 2016. "The Effects of Wage Contracts on Workplace Misbehaviors: Evidence from a Call Center Natural Field Experiment," NBER Working Papers 22342, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2373-2437 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Sybille Sachs & Edwin Rühli & Claude Meier, 2010. "Stakeholder Governance as a Response to Wicked Issues," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 96(1), pages 57-64, August.
    20. James C. Sesil & Yu Peng Lin, 2011. "The Impact of Employee Stock Option Adoption and Incidence on Productivity: Evidence from U.S. Panel Data," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(3), pages 514-534, July.
    21. Fleckinger, Pierre, 2012. "Correlation and relative performance evaluation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 93-117.

    More about this item

    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:sae:ratsoc:v:6:y:1994:i:3:p:334-352. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.