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Field
Trial Title
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Before
Paid With(out) Purpose: Costs of Poor Matches on the Meaning of Work
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After
Paid With(out) Purpose: Perceptions, Preferences, and the Meaning of Work
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Field
Trial Status
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Before
on_going
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After
completed
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Field
Abstract
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Before
Recent reporting and studies in Economics discuss meaning or purpose as an important dimension of work. Like location, culture, or benefits, work meaning may enter idiosyncratically into a worker's utility function and affect work choices on both extensive and intensive margins. I replicate and extend the findings of other studies (e.g. Burbano 2016) that workers have lower reservation pay amounts for tasks framed as meaningful (relative to the same task not framed as meaningful), even absent a firm-framing context. However, mine and other studies have used a constant, top-down, inflexible assignment of "meaningful" and "non-meaningful" task framing in our designs, not allowing for variation in worker perception of and taste for meaning. Therefore, I then investigate potential costs of poor matching of worker and task on this dimension of meaning, allowing for heterogeneity in both worker perception of and preference for meaning.
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After
I develop a novel online experiment with 387 subjects on Prolific and simple utility model to examine how workers respond to reported work meaning. Workers appear to value different aspects of work and be willing to give up other incentives for their best work match. 31% of workers appear not to value meaning in their work, 27% appear not to value work pay, 30% appear to value both, and 12% cannot be characterized. Overall, 57% of workers are willing to sacrifice up to 14% of possible pay in their pursuit of meaningful work. For workers who value work meaning, I estimate positive impacts of meaningfulness on the quantity and quality of output, although these effects appear only for a task with prosocial framing. Finally, I validate a light-touch treatment designed to increase worker awareness of the value they place on meaning, again finding effects only for workers who seek meaning in their work. Importantly, raising worker awareness of work meaning has no impact on the types of incentives they seek out. These results offer insights into how such interventions and preferences for work meaning might be leveraged in organizational settings.
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Field
Trial End Date
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Before
June 30, 2026
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After
October 20, 2025
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Field
JEL Code(s)
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Before
J2, J3, M5, C91
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After
J2, J3, D9, C91
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Field
Last Published
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Before
February 18, 2026 05:10 PM
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After
February 18, 2026 05:24 PM
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Field
Study Withdrawn
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Before
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After
No
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Field
Intervention Completion Date
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Before
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After
October 20, 2025
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Field
Data Collection Complete
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Before
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After
Yes
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Field
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
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Before
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After
387 subjects
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Field
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
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Before
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After
No
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Field
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
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Before
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After
387 subjects
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Field
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
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Before
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After
Awareness treatment 183 subjects, Null control 204 subjects
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Field
Is there a restricted access data set available on request?
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Before
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After
Yes
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Field
Restricted Data Contact
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Before
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After
[email protected]
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Field
Program Files
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Before
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After
No
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Field
Data Collection Completion Date
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Before
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After
October 20, 2025
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Field
Is data available for public use?
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Before
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After
No
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Field
Intervention Start Date
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Before
July 01, 2025
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After
June 10, 2025
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Field
Intervention End Date
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Before
July 31, 2025
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After
October 20, 2025
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Field
Was the treatment clustered?
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Before
Yes
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After
No
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Field
Planned Number of Clusters
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Before
2000 subjects
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After
400 subjects
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Field
Planned Number of Observations
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Before
10000 observations; 5 rounds per subject
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After
400 subjects
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Field
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
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Before
250 subjects ex-ante ranking; no training round; no mission information
250 subjects ex-ante ranking; training round; no mission information
250 subjects ex-ante ranking; no training round; mission information
250 subjects ex-ante ranking; training round; mission information
250 subjects ex-post ranking; no training round; no mission information
250 subjects ex-post ranking; training round; no mission information
250 subjects ex-post ranking; no training round; mission information
250 subjects ex-post ranking; training round; mission information
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After
Awareness treatment 200 subjects, Null control 200 subjects
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Field
Additional Keyword(s)
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Before
meaningful work, incentives, matching
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After
Meaningful Work, Nonmonetary Incentives, Labor Supply, Awareness
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