Attracting the right worker: Incomplete knowledge of task specific skill, employment contract type, and task difficulty Public
Farrington, Sukari (2010)
Published
Abstract
ABSTRACT
Attracting the right worker:
Incomplete knowledge of task specific skill, employment contract
type,
and task difficulty
By
Sukari Farrington
The purpose of this paper is to examine the interactive effects of
incomplete
knowledge of task specific skill, employment contract type, and
task difficulty on
workers' contract selection. Using an experiment with salient
incentives, I compare
contract selection given an array of individual performance-based
pay schemes or an
array of relative performance-based pay schemes, for easy and
difficult tasks, given
workers possess incomplete knowledge of their task specific skill.
Results provide
mixed support for the hypothesis that incomplete knowledge of task
specific skill
leads to directionally biased self-assessments which systematically
influence contract
selection, dependent on employment contract type and task
difficulty. Findings
suggest that when selecting from an array of individual
performance-based pay
schemes, contract selection is consistent with underestimation
given easy tasks.
Further, workers believe they are above average on easy tasks and
below average on
difficult tasks. As a result, in a relative performance-based pay
regime, workers faced
with an easy task are more likely to select performance-based pay
than workers faced
with a difficult task.
Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION
...................................................................................................
1
II. HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT
.......................................................................
4
Incomplete Knowledge of Task Specific Skill
......................................................... 5
Employment Contract
Type..................................................................................
6
Individual Performance-Based Pay and Task Difficulty
...................................... 7
Relative Performance-Based Pay and Task Difficulty
......................................... 8
III. EXPERIMENTAL METHOD
..........................................................................
12
Participants..............................................................................................................
12
Experimental Procedures and Task Description
..................................................... 13
Task Description
.................................................................................................
13
Pre-contracting Stage
..........................................................................................
13
Contracting
Stage................................................................................................
14
Experimental
Design...............................................................................................
15
Employment Contract
Type................................................................................
15
Incomplete Knowledge of Task Specific Skill
................................................... 16
Dependent
Variables...........................................................................................
18
IV.
RESULTS............................................................................................................
19
Manipulation and Other Checks
.............................................................................
19
Performance Benchmarks
...................................................................................
19
Perception of Task Specific
Skill........................................................................
19
Hypotheses Tests
....................................................................................................
21
Additional Analysis
................................................................................................
25
V.
CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................
26
REFERENCES..........................................................................................................
29
List of Figures
Figure 1
.......................................................................................................................
33
Figure 2
.......................................................................................................................
34
Figure 3
.......................................................................................................................
36
List of Tables
Table 1
........................................................................................................................
37
Table 2
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38
Table 3
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39
Table 4
........................................................................................................................
40
Table 5
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41
Table 6
........................................................................................................................
42
Table 7
........................................................................................................................
44
About this Master's Thesis
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