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This experimental research explores whether the coexistence a heterogeneity of explicitly or implicitly incentivized goals distorts civil servants’ decision-making process, and affects their cooperative effort and overall... [ view full abstract ]

This experimental research explores whether the coexistence a heterogeneity of explicitly or implicitly incentivized goals distorts civil servants’ decision-making process, and affects their cooperative effort and overall public administration performance. This novel research is intended to understand the setting in which new non-monetary incentives leading civil servants to a non-distorted goal selection can be introduced. Study 1 investigates in the laboratory the interaction among a group of peers (public managers/employees), who can select and contribute to either an explicitly or implicitly incentivized goal, each implemented as a public good. The latter goal involves the whole organization and is more difficult to achieve; nevertheless, it ensures a higher monetary reward. This study finds that (1a) the majority of participants opt for the implicitly incentivized goal, yet (1b) in a decreasing manner over time. Overall, (1c) contributions to such a goal are significantly higher than those to the explicitly incentivized one, but they also tend to decrease more rapidly. In fact, (1d) as the majority of those preferring the individualistic explicitly incentivized goal are not expected to exert high contributions, their free-riding behavior is not disappointing for those selecting that goal. In contrast, (1e) coordination difficulties for the explicitly incentivized goal trigger a stronger and steeper reaction in terms of contributions reduction. Study 2 relies on the same public good structure adopted in Study 1, but introduces a hierarchical distinction between public managers and employees, who have conflicting interests. As employees benefit from their contribution to the implicitly incentivized goal while managers benefit from employees’ contribution to the explicitly incentivized one, managers can try to affect employees’ decisions either to their own advantage or to the advantage of the overall organization by punishing them. Results show that (2a) public employees increasingly opt for the explicitly incentivized goal only after the introduction of the punishment mechanism, yet (2b) with a remarkable degree of heterogeneity across groups. In fact, (2c) the majority of public managers use the punishment to change employees’ goal selection and increase their contributions to the explicitly incentivized goal, while some managers sacrifice part of their own rewards by supporting the coordination of employees’ contributions to the implicitly incentivized goal. In this respect, it is worth noticing that punishment efficacy is higher in the latter case: in line with previous findings on the punishment mechanism in the public goods literature, (2d) contributions to the implicitly incentivized goal tend to be stable over time. Therefore, the ratio between actual contributions and overall potential contributions (computed according to the number of employees selecting this goal) is increasing over time. In contrast, (2e) employees change their goal selection according to their managers’ will, but do not adjust their contributions, which decrease over time. This interestingly shows that a punishment mechanism might not be effective if it is implemented in a context characterized by conflicting interests: in this case, the ratio between actual contributions and overall potential contributions is highly decreasing over time.