The Lure of Authority: Motivation and Incentive Effects of Power
By Ernst Fehr, Holger Herz, Tom Wilkening. Social Science Research Network, 2013
335 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Authority and power permeate political, social, and economic life, but empirical knowledge about the motivational origins and consequences of authority is limited. We study the motivation and incentive effects of authority experimentally in an authority-delegation game. Individuals often retain authority even when its delegation is in their material interest – suggesting that authority has non-pecuniary consequences for utility. Authority also leads to over-provision of effort by the controlling parties, while a large percentage of subordinates under-provide effort despite pecuniary incentives to the contrary. Authority thus has important motivational consequences that exacerbate the inefficiencies arising from suboptimal delegation choices.
Subfields: Demography, Economics and Econometrics, Safety Research
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9988fb30385663b300516a5b79e5213b8befe33d
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Citations in the corpus
- Can nudges be transparent and yet effective (2018, positive): “Another recent research stream provides evidence of the intrinsic value of decision rights and autonomy (Fehr et al., 2013; Bartling et al., 2014; Owens et al., 2014).”
- Interpersonal Power (2015, background): “Interpersonal power then involves both power over and freedom from others’ influence and the right to decide one’s own fate (Fehr et al., 2013; Lammers, Stoker, & Stapel, 2009).”