|
on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
| By: | Romensen, Gert-Jan; Soetevent, Adriaan (University of Groningen) |
| Abstract: | An often-voiced concern with relative performance feedback is that it may not improve workplace productivity if workers become demotivated and see no way to improve. Targeting feedback at specific productivity measures over which workers have direct control may in such cases prevent demotivation and focus attention. Does targeting improve worker productivity? We partner with a large bus company and experimentally vary the nature and number of peer-comparison messages which 409 bus drivers receive in their monthly feedback report. Messages are targeted at concrete driving behaviors and aimed at improving comfort and fuel efficiency. Using over 800, 000 trip-level observations, we find that these targeted peercomparison messages do not improve aggregate (fuel economy) or disaggregate measures (such as acceleration) of driving behavior. Further analyses also reveal no temporal orheterogeneous effects of the targeted messages. |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gro:rugfeb:2025006-eef |
| By: | Cagatay Bircan (UCL); Guido Friebel (Goethe-University Frankfurt); Tristan Stahl (Goethe-University Frankfurt) |
| Abstract: | Using rich data on personnel records, work assignments, and performance in a financial institution, we uncover the mechanisms leading to promotion gaps in knowledge teamwork. We find a substantial promotion gap for women in early career stages. Analyzing over 10, 000 investment projects reveals that assignments to project team leaderships (a “promotable†task) are crucial in explaining the gaps in promotions and affect long-term careers. We find causal evidence that male supervisors favor male bankers, while women benefit from female supervisors. A survey among employees indicates that women perceive to be disadvantaged in the assignments of tasks, but they do not differ in aspirations and demand for these roles. When a new CEO entered the firm, much of the gap disappears. |
| Keywords: | Careers; gender gaps; visibility; leadership; internal labor market |
| JEL: | M51 J16 D22 J44 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2518 |
| By: | Helena Manger |
| Abstract: | Despite extensive literature on incentives to increase employees’ work performance, economic research on employer-provided non-monetary benefits remains rare. This study investigates the relationship between benefits and employees’ work effort utilizing data from the German Socio-Economic Panel. The analysis is based on data from eleven survey waves from 2006 to 2022 and considers five benefit types: meal stipends, firm cars, phones and computers for personal use, as well as expense payments exceeding minimum costs. The results reveal a modest positive association between benefit receipt and employees’ work effort, measured as the difference between actual and contractual working hours per week. On average, benefit receipt is associated with 13 minutes additional work per week. Furthermore, receiving a greater variety of benefit types is linked to even higher work effort, with two to five or more benefit types associated with an average increase of 27 to 97 minutes of extra work per week. However, the effectiveness of benefits does not seem to be universal but varies depending on the type of benefit as well as individual and organizational characteristics. Notably, the positive association of benefits with work effort appears significantly higher for males than for females, and sectoral differences are evident. These findings underscore the importance of further research to better understand the specific conditions under which benefits can effectively enhance employee work effort. |
| Keywords: | Non-monetary incentives, benefits, work effort, motivation, productivity, SOEP, overtime |
| JEL: | C83 J32 M52 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1228 |
| By: | Itzik Fadlon; Briana Sullivan; Vedant Vohra |
| Abstract: | We study the role of job transitions and firm pay policies in the Black-White earnings gap in the US. We use administrative data for the universe of employer-employee matches from 2005-2019 to analyze worker mobility in a general but tractable framework, which allows for firm effects that depend on workers’ job history. Using differences in average pay between origin and destination firms as the treatment intensity of a job move, we analyze transitions up and down the job ladder and estimate race-specific passthrough rates of average firm pay into a mover’s own earnings. First, we find race-specific asymmetry around the direction of the move, whereby losses experienced in downward transitions are meaningfully larger than gains from upward transitions with a similar treatment intensity. For a $1 earnings increase in transitions up the job ladder, earnings passthroughs in transitions down the job ladder impose an earnings loss of $1.25 among White workers and $1.50 among Black workers. Second, we uncover career setbacks as a novel pathway in the evolution of racial earnings gaps. In transitions down the job ladder, Black workers lose an additional $0.24 for every $1 decrease in White workers’ earnings, a finding which prevails across sex and age. This “racial penalty” is not driven by differential pay, as it is completely absent when Black and White workers move between the same firm pairs. Instead, the penalty is due to differential sorting following career setbacks, so that Black workers regain employment in “worse” jobs, with strong evidence for racial differences in access to short-run liquidity as a mechanism. Overall, our findings offer a robust and computationally simple framework for modeling earnings determination processes and have implications for safety-net policies in the American labor market. |
| JEL: | H53 J31 J62 J65 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34058 |
| By: | Josh Lerner; Markus Lithell; Gordon M. Phillips |
| Abstract: | Impact investors claim to distinguish themselves from traditional venture capital and growth equity investors by also pursuing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) objectives. Whether they successfully do so in practice is unclear. We use confidential Census Bureau microdata to assess worker outcomes across portfolio companies. Impact investors are more likely than other private equity firms to fund businesses in economically disadvantaged areas, and the performance of these companies lags behind those held by traditional private investors. We show that post-funding impact-backed firms are more likely to hire minorities, unskilled workers, and individuals with lower historical earnings, perhaps reflecting the higher representation of minorities in top positions. They also allocate wage increases more favorably to minorities and rank-and-file workers than VC-backed firms. Our results are consistent with impact investors and their portfolio companies acting according to non-pecuniary social goals and thus are not consistent with mere window dressing or cosmetic changes. |
| Keywords: | ESG, private equity, venture capital, wages |
| JEL: | G20 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:25-30 |
| By: | Joaquín Coleff (CEFIP/CEDLAS); Juan Sebastián Ivars (Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | We consider an organization with two projects which have productive spillovers. Three individuals are active in this organization: two agents, each specialized in one project, and the CEO, who is a generalist. The owner of the organization allocates authority over each project to these three individuals. This allocation determines the organizational design and aims to maximize profits subject to incentive constraints. The main constraints arise from non-contractible choices: in decision-making, to exploit the gains from spillovers, and in providing incentives to address moral hazard in effort. We show that the optimal organizational design can take one of the following forms: centralization, decentralization, hierarchical delegation, or cross-authority. Two forces drive the optimal organizational design: (i) the CEO’s productivity relative to the agents’ in exerting effort, and (ii) the value of spillovers relative to profits in the project over which an individual has authority. We illustrate the practical relevance of our model by analyzing the emergence of hierarchical delegation in Facebook’s major 2018 reorganization. |
| Keywords: | decision rights, authority, moral hazard, hierarchies, incentives |
| JEL: | C70 D23 L22 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aoz:wpaper:367 |
| By: | Eleanor W. Dillon; Lisa B. Kahn; Joanna Venator; Michael Dalton |
| Abstract: | Most U.S. states have workforce development programs that offer firms grants to train their own workers. We create unique data linkages between participating firms, employment, and vacancies to explore the determinants and consequences of such programs. Training grants are more prevalent in markets where firms face greater employee poaching risk, suggesting these programs help overcome a market failure in updating worker skills. After training, firms experience prolonged employment growth and down-skilling in their job posts, relative to a matched control group. Training appears to help firms move toward optimal scale and expand opportunities for less skilled workers. |
| JEL: | J24 J42 J68 M53 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34012 |
| By: | van der Meer, Peter; Wielers, Rudi (University of Groningen) |
| Abstract: | We test the arguments that the extent to which work is meaningful depends strongly on the job, and that it has its own effect on the labour market. We argue that the meaningfulness of the job mainly depends on opportunities for self-realization and on the social value of the work. We test the hypotheses on EWCS 2015 and ISSP 2015. Respondents show a high level of agreement about themeaningfulness of their job. The analysis shows that the meaningfulness is strongly determined by job characteristics related to self-realization. We find that workers in non-commercial organizations find their jobs more meaningful than workers in commercial organizations. There is a trade-off between thewage and the meaningfulness of the work, when we hold constant for self-realization. We conclude that the extent to which work is meaningful strongly depends on the opportunities for self-realization, and is cause for trade-offs between wages and meaningfulness. |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gro:rugfeb:2024005-ob |