Tournament Winner Proportion and its Effect on Effort: An Investigation of the Underlying Psychological Mechanisms
通过真实努力实验，研究不同获胜者比例如何通过相对绩效关注和奖金关注影响员工努力，发现提高获胜者比例能增加努力，且低比例下努力随时间下降更明显。
This study investigates the effects of the psychological mechanisms activated by different proportions of tournament winners on effort. Using a real-effort experiment that allows the evolution of social comparison, which is central to our theory, we show that firms can increase employee effort (and performance) by increasing the proportion of winners. Based on a causal model, we generate evidence for our theory that this effect is driven by relative performance concerns and bonus concerns, both of which depend on the proportion of tournament winners. In addition, we find that, over time, the change in effort is more negative the lower the proportion of winners. This effect is driven by the different behaviors of winners and losers in a previous tournament.