AN ATTA-BOY DOES WORK

Thanks for Nothing

Awards that cost companies nothing to provide can pay dividends in productivity, a study finds. Researchers in Switzerland hired 150 people to do two hours of real work for a nonprofit group. They were paid a flat rate of $37 to search the Web for information useful in fund-raising, namely, contact information for local-government officials who might be approached for grants. The nonprofit group made clear to the students that it had no jobs to offer them if they performed well.

The workers were assigned to small groups and given enough privacy that, if they chose, they could slack off at their computers. Eighty-three of the 150 were assigned to groups whose members were informed they'd be competing for a certificate of special thanks.

Despite the brevity of the job and the fixed wage, both groups were productive. More importantly, the workers competing for a frameable piece of paper gathered, on average, 12% more information than those that did not.

"Getting More Work for Nothing? Symbolic Awards and Worker Performance," Michael Kosfeld and Susanne Neckermann, American Economic Journal: Micro (forthcoming)