Journal article
Cheating in the workplace: An experimental study of the impact of bonuses and productivity
- Abstract:
- We use an online real-effort experiment to investigate how bonus-based pay and worker productivity interact with workplace cheating. Firms often use bonus-based compensation plans, such as group bonuses and firm-wide profit sharing, that induce considerable uncertainty in how much workers are paid. Exposing workers to a compensation scheme based on random bonuses makes them cheat more but has no effect on their productivity. We also find that more productive workers behave more dishonestly. These results are consistent with workers’ cheating behavior responding to the perceived fairness of their employer's compensation scheme.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
Actions
Access Document
- Files:
-
-
(Preview, Accepted manuscript, pdf, 179.6KB, Terms of use)
-
- Publisher copy:
- 10.1016/j.jebo.2013.09.011
Authors
+ Economic and Social Research Council
More from this funder
- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/03n0ht308
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
- Journal:
- Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization More from this journal
- Volume:
- 96
- Pages:
- 120–134
- Publication date:
- 2013-10-10
- Acceptance date:
- 2013-09-22
- DOI:
- ISSN:
-
0167-2681
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- UUID:
-
uuid:9bfafb86-e6d9-4a50-9727-256bb916c3cb
- Deposit date:
-
2014-12-30
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Elsevier BV
- Copyright date:
- 2015
- Rights statement:
- Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
- Notes:
- This is the accepted manuscript version of the article. The final version is available online from Elsevier at https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2013.09.011
If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record