Konferenzbeitrag

Betrayal Aversion and the Effectiveness of Incentive Contracts

In this paper we study the impact of betrayal aversion on agents' effort provision, when principals have discretion regarding agents' remuneration. We show theoretically that agents who work under a nonbinding bonus contract face a trade off in their effort choice between the likelihood and the level of betrayal. Thus, depending on which effect predominates, betrayal aversion may either undermine or underpin the effectiveness of bonus contracts to induce effort. The data of our experiment reveal a strong detrimental effect of betrayal aversion. If the principal promises to pay a bonus for sufficiently high effort, the message is ineffective when agents are characterized by a high degree of betrayal aversion. In strong contrast, employees with a low degree of betrayal aversion increase their performance by more than 50%, if they received this message. The findings in this article identify an additional hidden cost of economic incentives.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: Beiträge zur Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik 2018: Digitale Wirtschaft - Session: Experiments - Incentives ; No. C19-V3

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual
Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
Thema
Betrayal Aversion
Principal Agent Problem
Experiment

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Rau, Holger
Müller, Stephan
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
ZBW - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft
(wo)
Kiel, Hamburg
(wann)
2018

Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:42 MEZ

Datenpartner

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Objekttyp

  • Konferenzbeitrag

Beteiligte

  • Rau, Holger
  • Müller, Stephan
  • ZBW - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft

Entstanden

  • 2018

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