The Magic of the Personal Touch: Field Experimental Evidence on Money and Appreciation as Gifts

Arbeitspapier

This paper makes use of two field experiments to explore individual effort responses to gifts. We extend the literature by looking at nonfinancial gifts and gifts that combine financial and nonfinancial elements with or without adding a ``personal touch.'' We find that non-pecuniary gifts that signal worker appreciation induce reciprocity. Most importantly, we find that there are interaction effects between money and appreciation. While money and appreciation are individually effective, they only work well together when they are combined with a personal touch. This points to the importance of interpersonal elements in gift giving and has important implications for how to effectively elicit worker effort.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper ; No. 16-045/VII

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Field Experiments ; Personnel Economics: Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects
• Subject: gift exchange ; reciprocity ; personnel economics ; gratitude ; personal touch ; field experiment

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Bradler, Christiane ; Neckermann, Susanne
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Tinbergen Institute
• (where): Amsterdam and Rotterdam
• (when): 2016

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/145352
• Last update: 2025-03-10T11:45:13+0100