Positive Self‐image and Incentives in Organisations
研究员工对自己能力的错误信念如何影响组织激励，发现当努力可观察时，错误信念对雇主有利；当努力不可观察时，则可能有利或不利，并给出有利条件。
This paper investigates the implications of workers' mistaken beliefs about their abilities on incentives in organisations. It shows that if effort is observable, then an agent's mistaken beliefs about his own ability are favourable to the principal. However, when effort is unobservable an agent's mistaken beliefs about his own ability can be either favourable or unfavourable to the principal. The article provides conditions under which an agent's overestimation about his own ability is favourable to the principal when effort is unobservable. The article shows that workers' mistaken beliefs about their co-workers' abilities make interdependent incentive schemes more attractive to firms than individualistic ones. Copyright (C) The Author(s). Journal compilation (C) Royal Economic Society 2008.