Bakgrund: Människors förändrade levnadsvanor med upplevelser så som hotell- och restaurangbesök har ökat kravet på den service som förväntas inom branschen. Kravet på ökad service ställer krav på att medarbetare ska vara motiverade till att prestera för att kunna erbjuda den service som efterfrågas och för att företagen ska kunna nå upp till sina uppsatta mål. För att motivera sina medarbetare och få dem att ta beslut som är i enighet med företagets mål kan företag använda sig av ett belöningssystem. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att kartlägga hur belöningssystemet i hotellkedjan är utformat för hotelldirektörerna samt hur bonussystemet uppfattas påverka motivation, handlande och beslutsfattande. Ett andra syfte är att identifiera och analysera de positiva och negativa effekter bonussystemet kan ge upphov till. Metod: En kvalitativ studie har tillämpats och en fallstudie på ett företag inom hotellbranschen har genomförts. Semi-strukturerade intervjuer med fem hotelldirektörer inom hotellkedjan har legat till grund för det empiriska materialet. Resultat och slutsatser: Studien visar att bonussystemet får hotelldirektörerna att bli motiverade till att prestera. Utformningen av belöningssystemet och bonusavtalets målsiffror är avgörande för vilka effekter det ger upphov till. Det är inte finansiella belöningar som främst motiverar utan det är uppskattning från gäster och personal som anses vara den främsta motivationsfaktorn. Beslut tas till största del utefter vad som är bäst för verksamheten. / Background: People and their changing lifestyles with experiences such as hotel and restaurant visits have increased demand for the service that is expected in the industry. The requirement for increased service requires that employees are motivated to perform in order to provide the services requested and to enable companies to achieve their goals. To motivate the employee, and get them to take decisions that are in agreement with the company goals, companies can use a reward system. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify how the reward system in the hotel chain is designed for hotel managers and how the bonus system is perceived to affect motivation, behavior and decision making. A second purpose is to identify and analyze positive and negative effects of the bonus system. Method: A qualitative study has been applied and a case study of a company in the hotel industry has been implemented. Semi-structured interviews with five managers at the hotel chain have been used to make the empirical material. Results and Conclusions: The study shows that the bonus system motivates hotel managers to perform. The design of the reward system and the goals in the bonus system are crucial for the effects it may lead to. It is not financial rewards that primarily motivate, instead it is the appreciation from guests and staff that is considered as the main motivation factor. Decisions are made to provide the greatest benefit for the business

Pleasure is part of hedonic well-being, with roots back to Epicurus 2000 years ago. With the new evolving neuroscientific methods of the late 20th and beginning of the 21st century, we are now able to study the biological components of pleasure. This thesis aims to review empirical studies on the neural correlates of pleasure, which can have important implications for well-being, and treatment of addiction and affective disorders. Recent studies have suggested that pleasure can be separated into coding and causing. Discoveries show that causing of pleasure is created in so called hedonic hot spots, areas of the brain that intensely creates pleasure in the shell of nucleus accumbens and in the ventral pallidum. Areas that codes pleasure on the other hand is represented into more cortical areas of the brain, including orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insular cortex. There has been a growing understanding about how pleasure is represented in the brain, and a discussion on interpretations and limitations are provided followed by future research suggestions in the final section.

Results from 10 empirical studies and 1 review article are described and can be summarized as follows: Only moral emotions represent an evaluation of person's behavior, whereas non-moral emotion provide information about outcomes. Positive moral emotions (e.g. pride, respect) signal that a person's (self or other) behavior was right, whereas negative moral emotions (e.g., guilt, indignation) signal that a person's behavior was wrong. These evaluations and signals are elicited by judgments of ought, goal attainment and effort (see Heider, 1958). Some moral emotions (e.g., shame or admiration) are also elicited by judgments on a person's ability. A person's responsibility (Weiner, 1995, 2006) and the perceived morality of a person's behavior (i.e., with regard to rightness and wrongness) represent further cognitive antecedents of moral emotions. Some moral emotions (e.g., regret, sympathy) are also influenced by a person's empathy (see Paulus, 2009) towards others. There are specific moral emotions that are closely connected to help-giving (e.g., sympathy), whereas other moral emotions are more closely related to reward (e.g., admiration) or punishment (e.g., anger). With regard to the cognitive effort underlying emotions, moral emotions require more cognitive effort (i.e., longer reaction times) than non-moral emotions.

To motivate effort, organizations commonly use budget-based tangible rewards (e.g., gift cards, merchandise) in lieu of or in addition to cash rewards and they can distribute tangible rewards to employees either directly (employees are given merchandise directly) or indirectly (via a redeemable points program). In conjunction with various budget-based financial rewards, employees can receive feedback about how they performed relative to other employees. However, employees can intentionally misstate their expected performance (i.e., create budget slack) when participating in the budgeting process, impairing the usefulness of budgets for planning and motivation. This dissertation investigates the effects of different types of budget-based rewards (cash, tangible, or redeemable points) on budget slack creation and performance, and whether relative performance information [RPI] moderates these effects. As predicted, results from an experiment completed by 166 undergraduate students show that participants eligible to earn redeemable points create less slack (i.e., set more difficult performance budgets) than those eligible for cash or direct tangible rewards. Further, RPI provides participants with a descriptive norm that slack creation is socially acceptable, resulting in more slack. Although I do not find support for the predicted indirect relationship between reward type or RPI on performance via their effects on budget slack, I do find that the provision of RPI has a direct positive effect on performance. Finally, supplemental analysis shows that those provided with RPI and cash rewards outperform all others. These results suggest that firms choosing to provide budget-based tangible rewards and allowing employees to participate in the budgeting process should consider using a redeemable points system rather than providing rewards directly to eligible employees. Further, before deciding whether to provide RPI to employees, firms should weigh the positive direct effects of RPI on performance against its negative effects on budget slack creation. Last, if a firm does choose to provide employees with RPI because of its positive effects on employee effort, firms may be well-advised to offer employees budget-based cash rewards instead of budget- based tangible rewards or budget-based points rewards.

The purpose of this essay is to examine the Swedish people’s level of knowledge about crowdfunding and their incentives and deterrents to crowdfunding investments. Early on crowdfunding was divided into two objectives: reward based and equity based crowdfunding. The division of objectives is logical due to the differencing conditions of the motivation for investors to invest. Supported by theories in crowdfunding incentives, commitment-trust, the prospect theory, and the diffusion of innovations, we aim to establish a comprehensive line of reasoning to support our model of motivation in the conclusive chapter. The results of this essay were achieved by a combined method. A quantitative survey tended to give us a sense of how well known the crowdfunding phenomenon is amongst the Swedish people. It was followed by a qualitative study consisting of interviews with crowdfunding investors with aim to understand their incentives and deterrents. The interviews served as the basis for our analysis. Our analysis reveals that the incentives to invest differ between equity based and reward based crowdfunding. The major common incitement was trusting the entrepreneur behind the project, rather than a neat investment prospectus. The seminal crowdfunding deterrent is ignorance. Today, the Swedish people are unknowing of the phenomenon and its significance.

Children with traumatic brain injury (TBI) often experience difficulties with inhibitory control (IC), manifest in both neurocognitive function (poor performance on the stop signal task, SST) and behavior (emergence of de novo attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or secondary ADHD, S-ADHD). IC allows for the regulation of thought and action, and interacts with reward to modify behaviour adaptively as environments change. Children with developmental or primary ADHD (P-ADHD) exhibit poor IC and abnormalities when responding to rewards, yet the extent to which S-ADHD is similar to and different from P-ADHD in terms of these behaviours is not well-characterized. The cancellation and restraint versions of the SST were used to examine the effects of rewards on 2 distinct forms of IC in children and adolescents divided into 4 groups (control, TBI, S-ADHD, and P-ADHD). The SST requires participants to respond to a “go signal” and inhibit their responses when encountering a “stop signal”. Rewards improved performance similarly across groups, ages, and cancellation and restraint IC tasks. Adolescents exhibited better IC and faster and less variable response execution relative to children. Significant IC deficits were found in both tasks in the P-ADHD group, with participants with S-ADHD exhibiting intermediate cancellation performance relative to the other groups. Participants with TBI without S-ADHD were not impaired on either task. The relationship between neurocognitive and behavioral IC was examined by comparing multi-informant ratings of IC across groups, and examining the relationship between ratings and IC performance on the SST. Participants in the control and TBI groups were rated within the typical range, and exhibited fewer problems than either of the ADHD groups, who differed from each other (the P-ADHD group was rated as more inattentive than the S-ADHD group). Moderate to high concordance was found between parent and teacher reports, each of which was poorly concordant with self-reports. The P-ADHD and S-ADHD groups were unaware of their own deficits. Poorer IC predicted parent and teacher classification of participants into ADHD subtypes, although IC did not predict rating concordance. Despite similar clinical presentations, S-ADHD and P-ADHD differ in the phenotypic expression of behaviour and manifestation of IC across contexts.

This thesis investigates the effect of a feedback-reward system on speeding and tailgating behaviours. Data utilized in this study were collected from 37 participants through a field trial commissioned by Transport Canada. In this trial, a feedback-reward system was investigated, which provided feedback and rewards to the drivers based on speed limit compliance and safe headway maintenance. The trial consisted of three phases: baseline, intervention, and post-intervention. During the intervention phase, real-time feedback was provided on an in-vehicle display. Participants also accumulated reward points and could view related information on a website. Results indicate that the intervention resulted in a significant increase in speed limit compliance, and this positive effect, although dampened, was still apparent after system removal. Similarly, results on headway compliance rate indicate a positive intervention effect, however, this effect did not sustain after system removal. These findings have implications for developing better aids to improve driving behaviour.

This thesis investigates the effect of a feedback-reward system on speeding and tailgating behaviours. Data utilized in this study were collected from 37 participants through a field trial commissioned by Transport Canada. In this trial, a feedback-reward system was investigated, which provided feedback and rewards to the drivers based on speed limit compliance and safe headway maintenance. The trial consisted of three phases: baseline, intervention, and post-intervention. During the intervention phase, real-time feedback was provided on an in-vehicle display. Participants also accumulated reward points and could view related information on a website. Results indicate that the intervention resulted in a significant increase in speed limit compliance, and this positive effect, although dampened, was still apparent after system removal. Similarly, results on headway compliance rate indicate a positive intervention effect, however, this effect did not sustain after system removal. These findings have implications for developing better aids to improve driving behaviour.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Covenant Theological Seminary, 2005. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-126).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2006. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 253-259).