Performance incentives in education has frequently been presented in purely rational choice economic terms, looking to see if the input of an incentive produced the desired output of student achievement. Such research has continually failed to produce significant effects. This dissertation attempts to recast incentives in terms of human capital theory and human behavioral economics, looking at the impact of social capital and support structures on teacher response to incentives. This study examines a major performance pay program in Texas using a concurrent-nested, mixed methods design. It finds that an external motivator like incentives is only effective in the presence of factors of internal motivation and that social capital positively affects the impact of a performance incentive. / text

Teacher compensation reforms have been on the rise in recent years, yet research has yet to fully demonstrate how teachers interpret these policies and how they may influence their instructional practices and professional decisions. This qualitative study of a performance pay program in an urban district in Texas drew on cognitive approaches to policy implementation and theories of sensemaking to examine and explicate these issues. Teachers’ experiences in two schools were examined through interviews, focus groups, and document analysis. The experiences of school principals and district policymakers acting as sensegivers to teachers about the program’s goals, purposes, and theory of action were also examined. District policymakers’ understandings of the program varied, and were informed by their positions in the system and their own interests in the program. These differences resulted in a complex program with an array of objectives for teachers to implement in schools and classrooms, as well as varying expectations for teachers’ work, which were not always understood by teachers. With few clear and consistent messages from policymakers, teachers and principals interpreted the program according to their own ideas about important outcomes, and then shaped it to fit their situations. Although accepting of the program, teachers and principals were not always able to focus on it in ways expected by policymakers given other demands on them, particularly those emanating from the accountability system. Some evidence of goal distortion in terms of teachers’ attention to student assignments and mobility was also found. These findings hold implications for cognitive theories of policy implementation, suggesting that teachers’ responses to policies are influenced by the amount of attention they are able to give them, as well as direct sensegiving about policy goals and expectations on the part of policymakers. The findings also suggest that performance pay programs can be expected to be adapted, co-opted, and selectively attended to in order to fit within the contexts in which they are implemented. Thus, policymakers should consider other demands in the policy environment that may compete with performance incentives, as well as the organizational contexts of schools in which they will be implemented. / text

Optimal investment in human capital through effective K-12 schooling is critical for building a productive work force. This investment is particularly important for minority and low income students. My dissertation uses econometric techniques to analyze the effects of different educational programs on the academic achievement of elementary and middle school students in Arizona. The first essay evaluates the effect of Arizona's new English program, the 4-hour ELD block, on the achievement of students. In the 2008-2009 academic year, Arizona law required that English Language Learner (ELL) students to be separated from their native English-speaking peers and interact in the same classroom for 4-hour per day with other ELL students. In this study dynamic panel data methods and regression discontinuity design are employed to analyze the effect of the 4-hour ELD block program on the academic achievement of students. Using data from one school district during the school years 2006 to 2010, this study shows that this new program did not have a notable effect on the state-wide test scores of ELL students. The second essay assesses the long-run and short-run effects of Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) program in Arizona. The TIF program is a nationwide performance-based compensation plan that provides incentives to teachers based on the student performance. The TIF program started in Arizona in the 2007-2008 school year and targets high need schools. Using a panel data set from 2006-2007 to 2010-11 school year, the effect of the TIF program on the achievement of students is estimated using the difference-in-difference method. Comparing the short-run and long run effect of this program indicates that the long-run effect is greater than that of the short-run. Finally, by utilizing a rich set of panel data from 2006-2007 to 2010-2011 school years, the third essay studies the raw and value-added achievement gap between first and second-generation students with native students. This study shows that native students outperform both groups of immigrant students in reading and math tests. Within immigrant students, second-generation students outperform first-generation students in reading but not in math, while the achievement growth of the second-generation students has a slower pace.

Previous empirical research on variable pay systems have suggested that possible gains can come from paying for performance, but highlight the difficulty firms face in measuring performance. Using contracts signed in Major League Baseball’s free agent market, I find that over the 2010-2014 period, teams utilized variable pay schemes with players that were more productive or signaled greater risk, either in their contract terms or via overspecialization. However, not all forms of risk signaling were correlated with greater use of performance incentives, including age and proxies for injury history. These findings have significant implications for labor practices more broadly, as the high-information environment of Major League Baseball can shed light on how principals behave when performance measurement costs are effectively eliminated.

In the last two decades, ignoring the bulk of educational research findings, policymakers shaped educational policy into a standardized testing movement that now dominates education. Now, to comply with No Child Left Behind, teachers and administrators shape curriculum in a way that maximizes student achievement measured by these tests. Recently, business and educational leaders initiated a reform movement to broaden curriculum, narrowed by this inadequate standardized testing movement, so that necessary 21st century learning skills can be practiced through project-based learning. The Federal Government’s enforcement of power over education created the climate that defined the current educational policy that gave birth to the standardized testing movement. In this climate, this reform to boost 21st century learning skills does not gain practical traction that results in changed policy, because it is impossible for standardized testing to assess most of these skills and this type of learning due to the limitations of bubbled-multiple choice questions. Instead of shaping policy to foster these 21st century learning skills, policymakers push another reform, through TAP (The System for Teacher and Student Advancement) and Value-Added Assessment. This reform attempts to improve instruction through teacher merit pay--a device that has failed many times in educational reform history. Unfortunately, most TAP systems use standardized tests as the only student achievement measurement, so almost all student achievement gains involving 21st century learning skills and project-based learning are not officially measured. Efforts to use portfolios and authentic assessment, the measurement tools that should be used to measure these higherlevel skills, are not supported by policymakers, because the lack of standardization requires more trust in the assessment ability of local school districts and communities. Consequently, a massive disconnect exists where standardized testing is being reinvigorated instead of de-emphasized, and this comes with the potential price of many teachers and administrators not embracing 21st century learning skills and project-based learning as much as they could if they were not bound by standardized test results. Ultimately, these two reforms that contradict each other involve larger issues of jurisdictional power over education at federal, state, and local levels, and ideological challenges to teacher job security and teacher representation.

行政院於民國91年起試辦績效獎金制度，期能激勵員工士氣，建立一個注重績效及提昇為民服務品質的優質政府，復於民國92年起於行政院暨所屬各級行政機關全面實施績效獎金制度，於此終於確立了我政府實施績效管理的機制，正式開啟邁向績效管理的新里程。 本文除就文獻探究理論層面，作更深層的剖析外，並期透過學者專家所作之量化調查資料、部分研究論文所作之實證資料，及先進國家和民間企業實施的經驗，進行實務面的深入探討，期望達到以下研究目的： （一）釐清實施績效獎金制度之績效管理概念，並逐步檢視其立論依據。 （二）探討國外先進國家及我國民間企業所實施績效獎金制度之特色，以為我國借鏡。 （三）探討臺北市政府所屬區公所實施績效獎金制度之具體效益分析及運用，並就實證資料分析，俾提供相關缺失改善建言。 衡諸績效獎金制度實施迄今，不僅為行政機關注入了績效管理的精神，亦使得員工有了新的體認。而本研究更期盼能藉由相關發現及建議，提供政府施政參考，進而提昇公部門之競爭力及實施績效管理的能力。 關鍵詞：績效管理、績效待遇、績效獎金。 / In 2002 the Executive Yuan implemented a test run of the performance bonus system, hoping to encourage and inspire the morale of the staffs and to establish a governing body of excellent quality that focuses on performance efficiencies and on raising the quality of services provided for the people. In 2003 the performance bonus system was officially put into practice in the Executive Yuan and all the administrative authorities of different levels directly under the Executive Yuan, when a mechanism was finally established firmly in the implementation of performance managements in our government. The implementation of such system officially took the country a step further towards a new milestone on the road to performance managements. In this paper not only based on probing into the theoretical level of the academic literatures and made in-depth analysis but also the following research goals are expected to be reached through quantified survey information by scholars and professionals; physical evidences and data from part of the research thesis; and the experiences of implementation from advanced foreign countries and domestic corporate businesses, to make an in-depth discussion with a physical and realistic approach: 1. To make clear the concept of performance management in the performance bonus system and to make a step by step survey on the basis of the theories. 2. To discuss the special features of performance bonus systems implemented by advanced foreign countries and local corporate businesses as a reference and example for our own government organizations. 3. To discuss the concrete analysis and application of performance efficiencies on the implementation of performance bonus system in the district offices governed by Taipei City Government, and to provide comments and suggestions for improvements based on the analysis of physical data and evidences. Since the implementation of the performance bonus system until today, not only are the spirits of performance managements brought into the administrative authorities but the staffs also gained new understanding for the concept. This research hopes to provide references for the government policies through the related findings and suggestions and further improve the competitiveness amongst the governmental departments, and their abilities in the implementation of performance managements. Keywords: Performance Management, Performance Pay, Performance Bonus.

<p>Det är en ständigt pågående debatt om huruvida belöningssystem fungerar som motivationsinstrument eller inte. Många, främst inom den psykologiska skolan, är kritiska till belöningssystem, trots detta finns de i alla organisationer. Kan denna förekomst förklaras av att det finns en annan skola, den ekonomiska, som är det dominerande synsättet hos företag? Syftet med denna uppsats är att ställa den psykologiska skolans motivationsuppfattning emot den ekonomiska i en analys, och utifrån denna se om det går att dra slutsatsen att det ekonomiska tankesättet är det som dominerar och därmed ge en förklaring till varför belöningssystem förekommer som motivationsverktyg i ett företag. För att kunna utreda detta har vi valt att göra en fallstudie på företaget Tempur och dess säljare, samt tagit hjälp av teorier ur såväl den psykologiska motivationsuppfattningen, Maslow och Herzberg, som den ekonomiska, economic man. Utifrån detta har vi dels dragit slutsatsen att den ekonomiska teorin dominerar såväl Tempurs antaganden om individen som säljarnas beteenden, dels att belöningar i form av pengar är den mest betydande faktorn för säljarnas motivation.</p>

Det är en ständigt pågående debatt om huruvida belöningssystem fungerar som motivationsinstrument eller inte. Många, främst inom den psykologiska skolan, är kritiska till belöningssystem, trots detta finns de i alla organisationer. Kan denna förekomst förklaras av att det finns en annan skola, den ekonomiska, som är det dominerande synsättet hos företag? Syftet med denna uppsats är att ställa den psykologiska skolans motivationsuppfattning emot den ekonomiska i en analys, och utifrån denna se om det går att dra slutsatsen att det ekonomiska tankesättet är det som dominerar och därmed ge en förklaring till varför belöningssystem förekommer som motivationsverktyg i ett företag. För att kunna utreda detta har vi valt att göra en fallstudie på företaget Tempur och dess säljare, samt tagit hjälp av teorier ur såväl den psykologiska motivationsuppfattningen, Maslow och Herzberg, som den ekonomiska, economic man. Utifrån detta har vi dels dragit slutsatsen att den ekonomiska teorin dominerar såväl Tempurs antaganden om individen som säljarnas beteenden, dels att belöningar i form av pengar är den mest betydande faktorn för säljarnas motivation.

L’objectif de cette thèse est de comparer l’efficacité des primes à la suggestion, des primes à la performance, et de la cession de parts aux salariés pour stimuler leur implication dans les dispositifs de suggestion (cercles de qualité, réunions d’atelier, boîtes à idées, etc.). Dans un premier chapitre,sont présentés, une approche historique, un état des lieux et une revue de littérature. Le chapitre suivant pose les jalons d’une théorie, dans un cadre simplifié ne comprenant qu’un employeur et un employé. Il développe un modèle théorique original de la cession de parts, orienté vers les augmentations de capital dédiées aux salariés. Il est montré que, tant que l’employeur n’est pas limité dans le nombre de parts qu’il peut proposer, ce mécanisme est le plus efficace. Le troisième chapitre consolide les résultats du précédent dans un cadre à plusieurs employés. Enfin, le quatrième chapitre présente une étude économétrique à partir de l’enquête REPONSE. La spécification et les variables sont retenues dans le souci d’être au plus proche des modèles théoriques. Les résultats confortent fortement ceux des modèles théoriques élaborés dans les chapitres précédents. / This dissertation aims at comparing the efficiency of suggestion pay, performance pay and shares selling, so as to involve employees into suggestions schemes (e.g. quality circles, workshop meetings, suggestion box). In the first chapter, the historical background, the current situation and the state of literature are being investigated. In the following chapter, a simple framework is considered with only one employer and one employee. A formal model of shared ownership that fits with the French scheme of ’capital increase dedicated to the employees’ is sketched. It is shownthat, as long as the employer is not limited in the number of shares he can offer, the scheme performs better than suggestion pay and performance pay. Next chapter builds upon the previous model and extends the results to a broader framework with multiple employees. The fourth chapter presents an empirical study based on the REPONSE survey. The econometric specification and the variables are chosen to fit the theoretical models. The results strongly support the theory.

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