Full Citation

Title: Fit: Field Experimental Evidence on Sorting, Incentives and Creative Worker Performance

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2011

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Abstract: We present the results of a 10-day field experiment in which over 500 elite software developers prepared solutions to the same computational algorithmic problem. Participants were divided into two groups with identical skills distributions and exposed to the same competitive institutional setting. The sorted group was composed of individuals who preferred the competitive regime instead of a team-based outside option. The unsorted group had population-average preferences for working in the regime or the outside option. We find this sorting on this basis of institutional preferences doubled effort and the performance of solutionscontrolling for skills, monetary incentives and institutional details.

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Authors: Boudreau, Kevin J.; Lakhani, Karim R.

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Publication Number: 11-107

Institution: Harvard Business School

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Publisher Location: Cambridge, Massachussetts

Data Collections: IPUMS CPS

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Other

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