在不同工作相依性下，競賽誘因對組織績效之影響：實地實證研究

The Effects of Tournament-based Incentives under Different Levels of Task Interdependence on Organization Performance: Field Empirical Evidence

本文依據競賽理論，探討在不同工作相依性下，競賽誘因對組織績效之影響。研究結果顯示：當員工工作彼此獨立時，擴大贏家與輸家間的酬勞差距，有利於提高績效。然而，當工作相依程度高時，擴大酬勞差距，一方面可激勵員工更努力；另一方面卻降低協助同儕的努力，進而損及組織績效。因此，相較於工作彼此獨立，當員工工作相依程度較高時，擴大酬勞差距對績效提昇幅度較小。本文利用一家大型汽車公司，包括176 個營業單位所提供中階經理人與員工之酬勞資料，進行多項競賽理論的假說檢定，實證結果支持大部分假說之預測。本研究結果意涵：企業在設計酬勞制度時，應同步考量工作相依性與競賽誘因間的配適性，俾利於組織績效的提昇。

Founded upon tournament theory, this article examines the impact of tournament-based incentives on organization performance under different levels of task interdependence. Tournament theory considers a group of employees competing for a fixed set of prizes defined by the pay dispersion between the winner and the loser. The employees exert efforts to increase the likelihood of winning a better prize and their efforts are increasing in the size of the prize. Task interdependence can vary from the lowest form of interdependence (such as an independent task) to the highest form of interdependence (such as a reciprocal task). Tournament-based compensation plans work well if employees perform tasks independently. However, a problem with tournaments is that since employees are compensated based on how well they do relative to their competitors, they are unlikely to help their competitors even though their tasks are highly interdependent, or the uncooperative behaviors among employees may even hurt organization performance. Balancing the tension between the cooperation of task interdependence and the competition of tournament-based compensation is a challenge for the design of tasks and reward system. Although some empirical evidence reports that tournament-based incentives work on the CEO or the top management team, few studies focus on non-management employees. Moreover, prior studies ignore the impacts of the fit between incentive schemes and task interdependence on performance. In this paper I use an analytical model based on tournament theory to explore two questions: Does the wider pay dispersion between the winner and the loser in a tournament increase organization performance? Are there differential effects on performance from tournament-based incentives under different levels of interdependent tasks? The predictions of the model suggest that wider pay dispersion between the winner and the loser in a tournament enhances organization performance under an independent task. However, two contradictory effects of greater pay dispersion make the performance change become blurred if employees work interdependently. On the one hand, greater pay dispersion will motivate employees to work harder in order to win higher pay. On the other hand, greater pay dispersion will prompt employees to not help their competitive colleagues and eventually hurt the organization performance. Therefore, the positive impact of greater pay dispersion under a high level of task interdependence on performance is less than that under an independent task. I further provide empirical analyses of tournament-based compensation, using personnel data of middle-level managers and employees and the performance data of 176 branches from a major car corporation. The findings support that wider pay dispersion among employees under independent tasks is positively related to performance. I find that the effects of wider pay dispersion between the winner and the loser on performance under interdependent tasks are less than that under independent tasks. Thus, the empirical results demonstrate that the effectiveness of tournament-based incentives is influenced by their interactive effect with the level of task interdependence. The results imply that a company can improve organization performance when compensation schemes take into account the “fit” between different levels of task interdependence and tournament-based incentives.