In the framework of the 3E seminar series on the topic of Experiments, Ethics and Economics, Prof. Diya Abraham held the lecture “Motivational Effects of Feeling Trusteds” on 26 January 2023.
Diya Abraham presented research on the impact of managers’ perceptions of employees on employees’ motivation to work on January 26, 2023.
Diya shows using a tightly controlled laboratory experiment that when employees learn that their manager trusts them less than their peers, they respond by reducing the amount of effort they provide for their manager. Interestingly, she finds that the reverse does not hold, i.e., when employees learn they are more trusted than their peers, they are not motivated to work harder for the manager. She finds evidence that in the case of the less trusted employees, a reduction in guilt (about working less) and negative emotions stemming from feeling distrusted drives their behavior toward the manager. A theoretical model of intention-based reciprocity helps organize the data from the experiment.
Based on her experiment, Diya suggests that when managers lack information about employees’ suitability for certain tasks, instead of making a subjective judgment, they would be better off implementing a transparently random task allocation mechanism. This would avoid situations in which some employees believe, based on the task they were assigned, that their managers dislike them or consider them less trustworthy than their peers.