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It is widely agreed that employees’ attitudes towards pay incentives are an important determinant of their effectiveness. The perceived fairness of pay incentives and their determinants are examined. Based on theories dealing with the fairness evaluation of rewards, a number of hypotheses are formulated proposing that employees’ judgements of the fairness of pay incentives will be partly determined by their attitudes towards work and certain situational and personal background factors. The findings generally support these hypotheses. They indicate that the fairness judgements of pay incentive schemes and the considerations underlying such judgements are determined, among other things, by work motivation and by personal background characteristics such as age, education, number of dependants, organisational tenure and country of origin.

This paper, in fact is the saga of turnaround of an ailing PSU plant, which in spite of all kinds of improvements measures taken up by the Company had never seen productivity beyond 65 percent of installed capacity. The purpose of this paper is also to showcase the amazing power of financial incentives in enhancing productivity, if rightly designed. On the other hand, it will also serve a lesson of caution to the users by highlighting the extent of damages what a faulty incentive plan can cause.

The methodology of Lean Six Sigma helped analyzing and improving the problem and tools like “Fishbone diagram” and “Analytical Hierarchy process” were very handy in identifying root causes for this complex problem and prioritization of those, respectively.

Root cause of low productivity being identified as “demotivated workforce on account of poor incentive earnings”, the existing financial incentive plans were given a relook. LSS tools like SIPOC, “heijunka”, “brainstorming” etc. were applied for revealing critical faults in the existing financial incentive schemes. Some unorthodox and very common methods were adopted in modifications and implementation of incentive plans.

Modification of incentive scheme involving labor union bargain is commonly resisted by both the parties, i.e. labor unions as well as the management. Although their interest behind the same remains different. One fears to loose, while other is afraid of conceding more. This case study was not an exception too.

Expecting resistances, a good and thorough Shadow working with all kinds of “extremities tests” were prepared. This along with complete transparency followed by well explanations made both the parties happy. Accordingly, the modified incentive plans were agreed upon and subsequently were approved by the management for implementation. Few other remedies and countermeasures suggested were also implemented.

The entire workforce was extremely happy and highly motivated. Provisions of equal incentive weightage with ample individual scope of earnings for both rival production groups in the modified incentive scheme successfully converted the inter-group hatred into healthy completion. Both the groups were gearing for much higher performance and earn more. Self-motivations were turned into group motivation, which is always a blessings for any incentive scheme.

Post-implementation period results were extra ordinary and unprecedented. Productivity was significantly enhanced to 15 percent in first six months, which increase up to 39 percent next year. Customer order and quality fulfillment met for the first time, relieving the management from great embarrassment. The annual incremental financial gain was more than Rs 1,000 millions. The methodology of identification of the root causes and the unique style of finding the solution are original in nature and would be helpful and guide for students, professionals of financial incentive designers, industrial engineers, managers and entrepreneurs.

Team‐based, performance‐contingent pay plans are designed to increase workers’ motivation and productivity. Evaluates differential performance among 65 workers employed in 20 teamwork groups in a public‐sector organization. Study results are in two directions: first, introduction of an incentive scheme increased productivity by 14 per cent. Second, differential teamwork performance is affected by tenure and education. Finds tenure, which represents “firm‐specific human capital” and years of schooling representing “general human capital”, are positive and significant in both a bivariate Pearson correlation and in multivariate regression analysis. An interaction effect of tenure and education was not found to be significant, probably due to colinearity problems. Discusses results from both labour economics and social psychology perspectives.

The study aims to address a critical gap in existing healthcare payment schemes and care service pricing by recognizing the influential role of patients' decisions on self-management efforts. These decisions not only impact health outcomes but also shape the demand for care, subsequently influencing care costs. Despite the significance of this interplay, current payment schemes often overlook these dynamics. The research focuses on investigating the implications of a novel behavior-based payment scheme, designed to align incentives and establish a direct connection between patients' decisions and care costs. The primary objective is to comprehensively understand whether and how this innovative payment scheme structure influences key stakeholders, including patients, care providers, insurers and overall social welfare.

In this paper, we propose a game-theoretical model to incorporate the performance of self-management with the demand for healthcare service, compare the patient's effort decision for self-management and provider's price decision for healthcare service under a behavior-based scheme with that under two implemented widely payment schemes, that is, co-payment scheme and co-insurance scheme.

Our findings confirm that the behavior-based scheme incentives patient self-management more than current schemes while reducing their possibility of seeking healthcare service, which indirectly induces the provider to lower the price of the service. The stakeholders' utility under various payment schemes is sensitive to the cost of treatment and the perceived health utility of patients. Especially, patient health awareness is not always benefited provider profit, as it motivates patient self-management while diminishing the demand for care.

We provide a novel framework for characterizing behavior-based payment schemes. Our results confirm the need for modification of the current payment scheme to incentivize patient self-management.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of varying motivation induced by financial incentives and common uncertainty caused by time pressure on audit judgment performance.

The experimental method is used to examine how financial incentives and time pressure affect audit performance, based on predictions by both economic and behavioral theories. The relative performance contract and the profit sharing contract are two incentive schemes considered. To achieve the incentive effect on subjects when conducting the experiment, all subjects were compensated with real cash rewards, according to their incentive contracts as randomly assigned.

As predicted, major results show that both incentive contract and time pressure affect audit judgment performance. The audit performance is generally better under the relative performance contract than under the profit sharing contract. Additionally, it is demonstrated that an increase in the level of time pressure significantly improves recall, recognition, and total efficiency under both types of incentive contracts, but impairs recall and total performance, particularly under the relative performance contract. Moreover, the reduction of recall and total performance under the relative performance contract is significantly greater than under the profit sharing contract. Nevertheless, in this case, the relative performance contract still outperforms the profit sharing contract.

The findings suggest the relative superiority of the relative performance contract in comparison with the profit sharing contract in improving auditors' judgment performance for structured tasks.

The relative performance contract would motivate junior auditors to exert more effort to increase their performance in the work environment of increased time pressure. The audit firms may incorporate relative performance evaluations into incentive schemes, to improve junior auditors' performance for structured tasks.

The paper is of value to audit firms in the design of performance‐contingent incentive contracts.

This paper seeks to examine the critical role fiscal incentives have played in urban regeneration in Ireland since 1986, focusing on the role of such incentives, their impact on development and implications for the market of their termination.

The paper is structured as a periodised chronology where real time is divided into analytically defined phases linked to policy shifts. In this way features of urban regeneration policy can be discussed within the economic context and policy constraints within which their decisions were shaped. Policies have evolved from blanket subsidisation of development in designated areas towards a more selective approach. The paper reflects the results of structured interviews of policymaking, planning and development interests on the operation and effectiveness of the schemes. Quantitative analysis of the costs and benefits of a selected number of property developments in Dublin is included and can be compared with similar schemes internationally.

The findings of this paper are that urban regeneration policies as operated over the period have had a significant role in the physical rejuvenation of previously derelict areas and that the role of incentive based policies requires continual monitoring to avoid market distortion effects and to achieve wider regeneration objectives in terms of social and economic aims.

Despite the importance of the subject there has been a noticeable lack of evidence‐based research in the area and this paper provides quantitative and qualitative evidence based material upon which further research on the costs and effectiveness of the schemes can be based.

The Article seeks to identify the configuration of executive directors conditional option and LTIP arrangements used to align the interest of the company’s directors and shareholders.

The article presents an empirical study of the option and LTIP arrangements (current and previous) of 51 major UK companies. The article focuses on the configuration of option schemes and LTIPs in respect of three critical elements: the performance target selected, the comparator used to benchmark performance and the quantitative performance target level requirement to be achieved to trigger rewards. The period 1989‐2002, covered by the research indicates a substantial degree of “experimentation” with many companies amending their original option schemes and LTIPs and a larger number of other companies introducing new arrangements. A substantial number of schemes can be characterised as being “undemanding” rewarding average rather than excellent performance.

It is It is proposed (in a follow up paper) to econometrically test for associations between particular configurations (identified in this article) and actual corporate financial performance, i.e. which configurations have the most robust impact on performance.

The author makes a number of recommendations aimed at making option schemes and LTIP, more “stretching”, rewarding only excellent rather than average performance.

This is the first paper to explicitly look at the components of option schemes and LTIPs in a detailed way, questioning the merits/demerits of the targets and comparators commonly used to evaluate performance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate senior managers' satisfaction with pay in the Nigerian Civil Service.

A field study was undertaken to test the hypotheses. The sample was drawn from senior managers in the Nigerian Civil Service. A quantitative methodological approach was used based on questionnaire designed to measure the variables that literature review has identified as having relationship with pay satisfaction.

The finding of this research paper shows that pay incentive scheme is a distinctive dimension of pay satisfaction among senior managers in the Nigerian Civil Service; and the perception of pay‐for‐performance determines the level of satisfaction with pay.

The sample size is very small relative to the total federal civil service population. Only senior managers were selected for questioning and may not reflect the general opinion in the Nigerian Civil Service. The sample is limited to the Federal Civil Service and excludes state and local government services in a federally governed country.

The study has important implications for organisations and human resource practitioners in Nigeria to design their compensation and benefit programmes.

This research is one of the few studies that explore pay incentive schemes as a distinct dimension of pay satisfaction relevant to the Nigerian work environment. It adds value to the study of organisational justice by demonstrating that procedural justice, interactional justice, and distributive justice, influence pay satisfaction.

EVERY profession evolves its own argot, adopting or inventing terms which the initiated understand and accept. Such precision saves time and avoids misinterpretation. In a technical subject like time and motion study such a recognised vocabulary is specially desirable.

WITH the approach of the European Management Conference at Torquay and the news that The Work Study Society will be holding a one‐day Conference in London on October 14th and another in Hereford on November 25th it looks as if work study men will have plenty of opportunities of exchanging points of view this autumn.