In an experiment, half the university students who were hired for a tedious, repetitive job — entering bibliographic records into a database — were willing to sacrifice part of their pay to increase their employer’s donation to a charity, say Mirco Tonin and Michael Vlassopoulos of the University of Southampton in the UK Moreover, such ‘social incentives’ increased workers’ average productivity by 13pc. Incentives of this type enhance employees’ identification with the job, the researchers say.

(Source: Management Science)

Published in Dawn, Economic & Business, May 4th, 2015

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