Motivating teams: Private feedback and public recognition at work q

Aside from money, what works best to incentivize teams? Using a randomized field experiment, I test whether fixed-wage workers respond better to private rank incentives or public recognition, and whether image motivation crowds out intrinsic motivation. School-feeding teams in 450 South-African schools were randomly assigned to receiving (i) private feedback through rank information, (ii) public recognition through symbolic award, (iii) both feedback and award, or (iv) no intervention. The analysis yields two main findings. First, private feedback raises performance more than public recognition are more effective when offered separately, receiving feedback on performance boosts effort more than public recognition. Second, image motivation crowds out intrinsic motivation, especially for low-ability teams. This suggests that providing performance feedback can be an effective policy for leveraging intrinsic motivation and improving service delivery, more so than mechanisms leveraging image motivation. (c) 2021 Published by Elsevier B.V.