Content area
Full Text
In this field experiment, we first compared the performance effects of money systematically administered through the organizational behavior modification (O.B. Mod.) model and routine pay for performance and then compared the effects of O.B. Mod.administered money, social recognition, and performance feedback. The money intervention based on the O.B. Mod. outperformed routine pay for performance (performance increase = 37% vs. 11%) and also had stronger effects on performance than social recognition (24%) and performance feedback (20%).
Although behavioral management, as a systematic approach to increasing employee effectiveness, was formulated about 25 years ago (e.g., Luthans & Kreitner, 1975), organizations are generally not using contingent incentive motivators to manage workers' day-to-day task-related behaviors and to improve productivity (Davis-Blake & Pfeffer, 1989; Ilgen, Major, & Tower, 1994). Moreover, the use of various incentives to enhance work performance is mostly ignored or, at best, assumed to be handled with existing pay, benefits, or year-end profit sharing or bonus plans (Kerr, 1999; Stajkovic & Luthans, 1997).
Among the models proposed within the conceptual framework of behavioral management (e.g., Scott & Podsakoff, 1985), the organizational behavior modification (O.B. Mod.) model (Luthans & Kreitner, 1985) has been frequently used to foster the effectiveness of various incentive motivators in different types of organizations (Stajkovic & Luthans, 1997). Based on the principles of behavior modification (Bandura, 1969), the O.B. Mod. model provides a five-step framework for identifying, measuring, analyzing, contingently intervening in, and evaluating employees' task behaviors aimed at performance improvement. In a recent meta-analysis (Stajkovic & Luthans, 1997), we examined the empirical findings over the past 20 years that pertain to the effectiveness of various interventions when applied through the O.B. Mod. model and found a 17 percent average increase in performance.
On the basis of distinct characteristics, such as outcome utility, informative content, and the mechanisms through which they operate to control human action (Bandura, 1986, 1997), the performance-enhancing incentive motivators most frequently used in organizations can be classified as: (1) money, (2) social recognition, and (3) performance feedback (Stajkovic & Luthans, 1997). Although the direct performance impact of each of these incentive motivators has been documented (Kluger & DeNisi, 1996; Komaki, Coombs, & Schepman, 1996), researchers have yet to examine the differences in the effects of the various incentive motivators...