IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lmu/muenar/20127.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Discretion, productivity, and work satisfaction

Author

Listed:
  • Bartling, Björn
  • Fehr, Ernst
  • Schmidt, Klaus M.

Abstract

In Bartling, Fehr, and Schmidt (2012) we show theoretically and experimentally that it is optimal to grant discretion to workers if (i) discretion increases productivity, (ii) workers can be screened by past performance, (iii) some workers reciprocate high wages with high effort, and (iv) employers pay high wages leaving rents to their workers. In this paper we show experimentally that the productivity increase due to discretion is not only sufficient but also necessary for the optimality of granting discretion to workers. Furthermore, we report representative survey evidence on the effect of discretion on workers’ welfare, confirming that workers earn rents.

Suggested Citation

  • Bartling, Björn & Fehr, Ernst & Schmidt, Klaus M., 2013. "Discretion, productivity, and work satisfaction," Munich Reprints in Economics 20127, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:lmu:muenar:20127
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bjorn Bartling & Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 2012. "Screening, Competition, and Job Design: Economic Origins of Good Jobs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 834-864, April.
    2. Ernst Fehr & Georg Kirchsteiger & Arno Riedl, 1993. "Does Fairness Prevent Market Clearing? An Experimental Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(2), pages 437-459.
    3. Ichniowski, Casey & Shaw, Kathryn & Prennushi, Giovanna, 1997. "The Effects of Human Resource Management Practices on Productivity: A Study of Steel Finishing Lines," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 291-313, June.
    4. Rosen, Sherwin, 1987. "The theory of equalizing differences," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & R. Layard (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 12, pages 641-692, Elsevier.
    5. Morris M. Kleiner & Richard B. Freeman, 2000. "Who Benefits Most from Employee Involvement: Firms or Workers?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 219-223, May.
    6. Casey Ichniowski & Kathryn Shaw, 2003. "Beyond Incentive Pay: Insiders' Estimates of the Value of Complementary Human Resource Management Practices," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 155-180, Winter.
    7. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    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. Alessandro De Chiara & Ester Manna, 2019. "Delegation with a Reciprocal Agent," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 35(3), pages 651-695.
    2. Britta Butz & Pablo Guillen Alvarez & Christine Harbring, 2024. "Incentives for cooperation in groups: sociality meets decision rights," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 18(10), pages 2925-2951, October.
    3. Lukas Kiessling & Jonas Radbruch & Sebastian Schaube, 2022. "Self-Selection of Peers and Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(11), pages 8184-8201, November.
    4. Burdin, Gabriel & Halliday, Simon & Landini, Fabio, 2018. "The hidden benefits of abstaining from control," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 1-12.
    5. Diane Pelly, 2023. "Worker Well-Being and Quit Intentions: Is Measuring Job Satisfaction Enough?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 397-441, September.
    6. Roşca Vlad I., 2022. "Person-Job Fit and Subjective Underemployment in Multinational Companies," Proceedings of the International Conference on Business Excellence, Sciendo, vol. 16(1), pages 981-991, August.
    7. Lea Cassar, 2014. "Optimal contracting with endogenous project mission," ECON - Working Papers 150, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Oct 2014.
    8. Awan, Ashar & Hamdani, Nisar, 2015. "Achieving Job Satisfaction through Spirituality: A Case Study of Muslim Employees," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 1(1), pages 119-152.
    9. Eric van Damme, 2013. "Preventing Abuse by Controlling Shareholders," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 169(1), pages 190-196, March.
    10. Lea Cassar, 2014. "Job mission as a substitute for monetary incentives: experimental evidence," ECON - Working Papers 177, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    11. Burdin, Gabriel & Halliday, Simon & Landini, Fabio, 2015. "Third-Party vs. Second-Party Control: Disentangling the Role of Autonomy and Reciprocity," IZA Discussion Papers 9251, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Butz, Britta & Guillen Alvarez, Pablo & Harbring, Christine, 2021. "Incentives for Cooperation in Teams: Sociality Meets Decision Rights," IZA Discussion Papers 14242, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    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. Bjorn Bartling & Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 2012. "Screening, Competition, and Job Design: Economic Origins of Good Jobs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 834-864, April.
    2. Englmaier, Florian & Strasser, Sebastian & Winter, Joachim, 2014. "Worker characteristics and wage differentials: Evidence from a gift-exchange experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 185-203.
    3. Holger Herz & Christian Zihlmann, 2024. "Adverse effects of control? Evidence from a field experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 27(2), pages 469-488, April.
    4. Sliwka, Dirk & Werner, Peter, 2016. "How Do Agents React to Dynamic Wage Increases? An Experimental Study," IZA Discussion Papers 9855, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Alexander W Cappelen & Johanna Mollerstrom & Bjørn-Atle Reme & Bertil Tungodden, 2022. "A Meritocratic Origin of Egalitarian Behaviour," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(646), pages 2101-2117.
    6. Alessandro De Chiara & Ester Manna, 2019. "Delegation with a Reciprocal Agent," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 35(3), pages 651-695.
    7. Peter Doeringer & Christine Evans-klock & David Terkla, 2005. "Management cultures and regional development: High performance management and the location of new manufacturing plants," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(6), pages 815-830, September.
    8. Benndorf, Volker & Rau, Holger A., 2012. "Competition in the workplace: An experimental investigation," DICE Discussion Papers 53, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    9. Florian Englmaier & Katharina Schüßler, 2015. "Complementarities of HRM Practices - A Case for Employing Multiple Methods and Integrating Multiple Fields," CESifo Working Paper Series 5249, CESifo.
    10. Cassar, Lea & Armouti-Hansen, Jesper & Dereky, Anna & Engl, Florian, 2021. "Efficiency Wages with Motivated Agents," CEPR Discussion Papers 15723, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Koch, Alexander K. & Nafziger, Julia, 2016. "Gift exchange, control, and cyberloafing: A real-effort experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 131(PA), pages 409-426.
    12. Holger Herz & Christian Zihlmann, 2021. "Adverse Effects of Contol: Evidence from a Field Experiment," CESifo Working Paper Series 8890, CESifo.
    13. Englmaier, Florian & Schüßler, Katharina, 2015. "Complementarities of HRM Practices," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 503, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    14. Armouti-Hansen, Jesper & Cassar, Lea & Deréky, Anna & Engl, Florian, 2024. "Efficiency wages with motivated agents," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 66-83.
    15. Jesper Armouti-Hansen & Lea Cassar & Anna Deréky & Florian Engl, 2020. "Efficiency Wages with Motivated Agents," CESifo Working Paper Series 8474, CESifo.
    16. David J. Cooper & Krista Saral & Marie Claire Villeval, 2021. "Why Join a Team?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(11), pages 6980-6997, November.
    17. Sharon Novak & Scott Stern, 2009. "Complementarity Among Vertical Integration Decisions: Evidence from Automobile Product Development," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(2), pages 311-332, February.
    18. Ghidoni, Riccardo & Suetens, Sigrid, 2019. "Empirical Evidence on Repeated Sequential Games," Other publications TiSEM ff3a441f-e196-4e45-ba59-c, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    19. Jordi Brandts & Werner Güth & Andreas Stiehler, 2002. "I want YOU! An experiment studying the selection effect when assigning distributive power," Papers on Strategic Interaction 2002-13, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group.
    20. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2016-029 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Faralla, Valeria & Borà, Guido & Innocenti, Alessandro & Novarese, Marco, 2020. "Promises in group decision making," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 1-11.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • M5 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs

    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:lmu:muenar:20127. 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: Tamilla Benkelberg (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.