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Team goal incentives and individual lying behavior

  • In this article we examine the influence of two goal compensation schemes on lying behavior. Based on the die rolling task of Fischbacher/Föllmi-Heusi (2013), we apply an individual goal incentive scheme and a team goal incentive scheme. In both settings individuals receive a fixed bonus when attaining the goal. We find that under team goal incentives subjects are less inclined to over-report production outputs beyond the amount which is on average necessary for goal attainment. Investigating subjects’ beliefs on their team mates’ behavior under team goal incentives reveals that subjects who either believe that lying is not profitable (i.e., the team goal cannot be reached with a lie) or not absolutely necessary (i.e., there is a good chance that the team goal can also be reached without lying) tend to be honest. We also find that subjects who believe that the team goal has already been reached by their team mates tend to over-report production outputs. Across treatments, women are found to be more honest than men. Subjects’ ersonality is not associated with reported production outputs. Our work contributes to previous research on how different compensation schemes affect unethical behavior in organizational settings.

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Metadaten
Author:Julian Conrads, Mischa Ellenberger, Bernd Irlenbusch, Elia Nora Ohms, Rainer Michael Rilke, Gari Walkowitz
URN:urn:nbn:de:hbz:992-opus4-4054
Series (Serial Number):WHU – Working Paper Series in Economics (WP 17/02)
Publisher:WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management
Place of publication:Vallendar
Document Type:Working Paper
Language:English
Date of Publication (online):2017/06/08
Publishing Institution:WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management
Release Date:2017/06/08
Tag:Arbeitsgruppe; Experiment; Individuelle Unterschiede; Lügen; Vergütungssystem; Ziele
Compensation scheme; Goals; Individual differences; Lying; Team
Volume:2017
Issue:WP 17/02
Page Number:25
Institutes:WHU Economics Group / IHK-Chair of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
JEL-Classification:C Mathematical and Quantitative Methods / C9 Design of Experiments / C91 Laboratory, Individual Behavior
C Mathematical and Quantitative Methods / C9 Design of Experiments / C92 Laboratory, Group Behavior
M Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting / M5 Personnel Economics / M52 Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects
Licence (German):Copyright for this publication