IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/elg/eechap/17759_10.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Personnel economics: managing human resources through performance-related pay

In: Elgar Introduction to Theories of Human Resources and Employment Relations

Author

Listed:
  • Victoria Wass

Abstract

Personnel economics is the application of economic theories and mathematical approaches to the management of people at work. Like its disciplinary grandparent, it embodies a particular way of understanding and explaining individual and social behaviour, one that is based on modelling how economic agents respond to changes in the external environment where this changes the incentives that agents face. Using the example of performance-related pay, this chapter guides the reader through the distinctive approach of personnel economics, its foundations, its insights and its contribution to HRM. Basic theory and a simple model are used to show what performance-related pay might look like and why and when it might be effective. Performance-related pay has been criticized in the literature as much as it has been promoted. Personnel economics itself offers a sophisticated and comprehensive analysis of where and why performance-related pay might fail to work. However, incentives are central to personnel economics and, if pay is not a motivator of effort, then there is little utility for a theory which assumes that it is.

Suggested Citation

  • Victoria Wass, 2019. "Personnel economics: managing human resources through performance-related pay," Chapters, in: Keith Townsend & Kenneth Cafferkey & Aoife M. McDermott & Tony Dundon (ed.), Elgar Introduction to Theories of Human Resources and Employment Relations, chapter 10, pages 139-154, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    • Handle: RePEc:elg:eechap:17759_10
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781786439000/9781786439000.00017.xml
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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:elg:eechap:17759_10. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Darrel McCalla (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.e-elgar.com .

    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.