Attracting the right worker: Incomplete knowledge of task specific skill, employment contract type, and task difficulty Pubblico

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 ........................................................................................................................ 38
Table 3 ........................................................................................................................ 39
Table 4 ........................................................................................................................ 40
Table 5 ........................................................................................................................ 41
Table 6 ........................................................................................................................ 42
Table 7 ........................................................................................................................ 44

About this Master's Thesis

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	Business
Degree	MA
Submission	Master's Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Psychology, General Business Administration, Accounting
Parola chiave	Incomplete knowledge of task specific skill Management accounting Self-sorting
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Towry, Kristy, Emory University
Committee Members	Pownall, Grace, Emory University

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