Strategic promotion tournaments and worker performance
研究企业如何通过组织晋升锦标赛激励员工提高绩效，利用美国四个大都市区专业工人的数据，发现相对绩效决定晋升，且更大的薪酬差距能激励员工。
Abstract In this analysis I study promotion schemes as human resource management strategies by which the firm can realize strategic goals by motivating workers to higher levels of effort and performance. Using information on promotions, wages, and performance for professional workers in a cross‐section of establishments in four metropolitan areas of the United States, I investigate empirically the proposition that firms strategically organize promotion tournaments to motivate workers to higher levels of performance. I present evidence suggesting that relative performance of workers determines promotions, supporting the notion of internal promotion competitions in which internal hiring policies and fixed job slots combine to create competitions among workers of a given rank in a firm. I then estimate a structural model of promotion tournaments that simultaneously accounts for worker and firm behavior and how the interaction of these behaviors gives rise to promotions. The results are consistent with the prediction of tournament theory that workers are motivated by larger spreads. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.