| Field | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Field Study Withdrawn | Before | After No |
| Field Intervention Completion Date | Before | After December 31, 2018 |
| Field Data Collection Complete | Before | After Yes |
| Field Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization) | Before | After 232 stores |
| Field Was attrition correlated with treatment status? | Before | After No |
| Field Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations | Before | After 346 apprentices |
| Field Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms | Before | After 149 apprentices (97 stores) control, 144 apprentices (101 stores) "Money"-treatment, 53 apprentices (34 stores) "Time"-treatment |
| Field Is there a restricted access data set available on request? | Before | After No |
| Field Program Files | Before | After Yes |
| Field Program Files URL | Before | After https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.00484 |
| Field Data Collection Completion Date | Before | After March 16, 2020 |
| Field Is data available for public use? | Before | After No |
| Field | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Field Paper Abstract | Before | After Monetary incentives are widely used to align employee actions with employer objectives. We conducted a field experiment in a retail chain to evaluate whether an attendance bonus could reduce employee absenteeism. Apprentices in 232 stores were randomly assigned to a control group or one of two treatment groups in which a monetary or time-off attendance bonus was introduced for one year. We find that neither variant of the attendance bonus led to a systematic reduction in absenteeism. On the contrary, the monetary attendance bonus increased absenteeism substantially by around 50% on average, which corresponds to more than five additional days absent per employee and year. This effect was driven by the most recently hired apprentices. Survey results reveal that the monetary attendance bonus shifted the perception of absenteeism as acceptable behavior. The backfiring effect persisted beyond the end of the experiment, indicating a lasting erosion of social norms. |
| Field Paper Citation | Before | After Jakob Alfitian, Dirk Sliwka, Timo Vogelsang (2023) When Bonuses Backfire: Evidence from the Workplace. Management Science 0(0). |
| Field Paper URL | Before | After https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.00484 |