Cheating for the Cause: The Effects of Performance-Based Pay on Socially Oriented Misreporting
通过三个实验，研究了绩效薪酬如何影响人们为支持社会使命而进行的虚报行为，发现绩效薪酬会降低这种虚报倾向，因为增加了对员工仁慈和诚实自我概念的损害成本。
ABSTRACT We examine the effect of performance-based pay on misreporting intended to benefit a social mission. We show that performance-based pay decreases people's propensity to misreport for a social mission in a not-for-profit setting (Experiment 1). We similarly show that in a for-profit setting, performance-based pay also decreases misreporting propensity for a social mission, although not for a non-social mission (Experiment 2). Finally, using a framed field experiment with participants attending a conference hosted by a real charity, we show that performance-based pay reduces actual misreporting when misreporting leads to more donations for the charity (Experiment 3). These results are consistent with our theory suggesting that, relative to fixed pay, performance-based pay imposes additional costs on misreporting employees' self-concepts of benevolence and honesty. JEL Classifications: C93; J33; L31; M4; M52.