The purpose of this descriptive study was to investigate the relationships among the awarding of career pay, teacher motivation, and student achievement. This study sought to answer the following questions: (1) Is there a difference in intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of those teachers who receive career pay as opposed to those teachers who do not receive career pay? and (2) Is reading and mathematics achievement higher in teachers' classes where teachers receive career pay than in classes where teachers do not receive career pay? According to the U.S. Department of Education projections, by the year 2009 school systems will face a 2-2.5 million teacher shortage. Some 200,000 new teachers are needed annually to enter the profession. Career pay may prove to be a method to reward, to attract, and to retain excellent teachers. Student achievement was assessed using the California Achievement Test. Pretest and Posttest gain scores were used to assess higher achievement in reading or mathematics for teachers who receive career pay as opposed to those who did not receive career pay. A Teacher Motivation Questionnaire was used to assess intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of teachers. Specifically, the instrument was used to determine if teachers who received career pay were more intrinsically or extrinsically motivated than teachers who did not receive career pay. Data collected were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences using regression analysis, frequencies, reliability, and t-tests. Conclusions of this study are that teachers who receive career pay are not more intrinsically or extrinsically motivated than teachers who do not receive career pay and that student achievement is not increased by the awarding of career pay. / Ed. D.

The motivational properties of Longstreth's (1970) definitions of incentive and frustrative cues were tested using 32 rats in a two phase straight alleyway experiment. During pretraining, incentive cue Ss were presented a visual cue prior to reinforcement; frustrative cue Ss experienced the visual cue simultaneously with reinforcement. Ss encountered the same cue in mid-alley during 40 CRF training trials. Significant inhibition developed as frustrative cue Ss passed through the cue and postcue segments. Significant incentive effects occurred midway through training only in the postcue segment. Differential resistance to extinction was not found. The results did not support all of Longstreth's assumed functions. The motivational effects were interpreted using Spence's and Amsel's instrumental learning paradigms.

This experiment investigated how different percentages of incentive pay affected performance on a number-entering task. It was hypothesized that the critical factor in incentive pay systems was the absolute amount of money that could be earned in an incentive pay paradigm. A counterbalanced single-subject reversal design was employed to examine effects of incentives on performance. Twelve subjects were used in the experiment with three subjects assigned to one of four experimental paradigms. Two of the experimental paradigms incorporated 10% and 100% incentive pay conditions, while the other two experimental paradigms incorporated absolute pay conditions equal to the 10% and 100% incentive pay conditions. Results indicated that similar trends in productivity occurred across subjects in all four experimental paradigms.

The dissertation revealed that pre-colonial animosities and political divisions remained very strong in the political calculation of various ethnic groups in Nigeria and Kenya. This is proven by analyzing the ethnic mobilization campaign strategy adopted by political actors, especially in Nigeria and Kenya. However, it could be shown how debate on national policy issues directed the 2012 presidential election campaign in Ghana, while in Nigeria and Kenya ethnic identity legitimacy rights dominated public discourse and directed voter mobilization in the 2011 and 2007 presidential elections. The dissertation discovered how the collaboration between the media and the public compelled political actors in Ghana to defocus inter-ethnic grievances and concentrate on issues with national policy implications instead. It revealed that the political party alliances and interest alignments, which produced a “coalition of convenience”, were a direct product of ethnicity and religion identity legitimacy rights in two of the three case study countries; namely Nigeria and Kenya. Consequently, campaigns in the focused elections were streamlined to support the political concerns of each group under the premise of solidarity. Voters’ electoral loyalty was focused on ethnic and regional political concerns. In that sense, ethnicity identity legitimacy rights and political interest were raised above policy goals and national interests during the elections in Nigeria and Kenya. By extension, the active political participation of the people was anchored on the ethnic affiliation of the candidates. This was very evident in the observed voting pattern in Nigeria and Kenya. The use of “Ethnicity-centered Mobilization Strategy” was a disservice to democracy and the electoral processes along the 2011 and 2007 elections in both Nigeria and Kenya. The author is convinced that electoral mobilization strategies, oriented towards inter-ethnic grievances, identity legitimacy rights, regional and religious affiliation, were catalysts to the election violence experienced during these presidential elections. The dissertation argues that the desire and privilege to wield political power and authority in the case study societies contributed heavily to the violent mob action that emerged from the focused elections. It shows how campaigns, anchored on inter-ethnic grievances and the desire to exert identity legitimacy rights for political relevance, created ethnic irredentists, religious hard-liners and shaped the mobilization and voter participatory capacity in each ethnic group during the focused elections. The dissertation was able to establish how campaign strategy as used by the political actors through “material and solidarity incentives” drove the electoral processes. To that extend the use of ethnicity-centered solidarity prepared the ground for violent response in Nigeria and Kenya. Nevertheless, the use of a material incentive strategy to lure voters compromised voters’ electoral conscience and subsequently led to commercialization of the elections, especially in Nigeria. Consequently, the binary effects of the strategy are represented in the compromised status of the voters and the commercialization of the processes. The various events as orchestrated by the political actors devalued the elections and democracy itself. The spontaneous eruption of violence in Nigeria and Kenya was as result of campaign strategy as the “Ethnic Alliance” supporting each of the two opposition groups had expected their candidate to win the election in Kenya and Nigeria in 2007 and 2011 respectively. The violent outcome of the Presidential thus confirmed the negative role of “Solidarity Incentive Strategy” as a campaign method in a distressed society. Ethno-regional voter mobilization methods centered on inter-ethnic grievances, as well as religion influenced voter mobilization to achieve electoral success negatively and distorted the basis for violent-free democratic elections in the case study countries.

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We present three distinct works on the subject of incentive design. The first focuses on a fundamental aspect of all principal-agent models, the participation constraint. We endogenise the constraint, allowing the agent to influence his outside option, albeit at some detriment to the project he is contracted to work upon. We compare the optimal contract to the literature on the supposed trade-off between risk and incentives. We find support for the Prendergast (2002) observation of a positive relationship between the two variables and ofer an explanation through the use of said influence activities. The second contribution introduces another principal-agent framework for models with both adverse selection and moral hazard, with the novel inclusion of limited liability. Described in a target-setting environment, the findings are related to and support the use of tenure contracts in academia. This is justified by the fact that pooling equilibria maximise the value to the principal and fully separating equilibria are implemented with non-monotonic wage structures. Finally, in opposition to conventional literature, those of low type make rent gains over and above their reservation utility, while the high types break even. The final chapter studies organisational design and allocation of control. We offer conditions whereby firms would wish to integrate, or profit-share, with another, given varying degrees of control allocation. We show that integration comes at a lower cost for the decision-making firm when control is contractible as opposed to transferable. Also we show that the level of incompatibility between firms, unrelated to financial gain, can affect the integration decision.

In recent years, extensive studies of many interesting aspects of online community dynamics promoted a better understanding of this area. One of the most challenging problems facing builders of online communities is the design of incentive mechanisms that can ensure user participation. However, running online community experiments in the real world is expensive, and requires a great deal of motivation from users. In this thesis two major approaches are explored: system dynamics modeling and agent-based modeling, to simulate the overall behaviours of participants in online communities. Although these models are developed by using two different methodologies, both of them can provide insights into the user motivation process, incentive mechanism evaluation and community development. The target online community for my study is called Comtella, which is used in several senior Computer Science classes in the Department of Computer Science, University of Saskatchewan. Simulation models for the Comtella online community have been developed and the simulation results are useful to provide future directions for incentive mechanism improvement.

In recent years, extensive studies of many interesting aspects of online community dynamics promoted a better understanding of this area. One of the most challenging problems facing builders of online communities is the design of incentive mechanisms that can ensure user participation. However, running online community experiments in the real world is expensive, and requires a great deal of motivation from users. In this thesis two major approaches are explored: system dynamics modeling and agent-based modeling, to simulate the overall behaviours of participants in online communities. Although these models are developed by using two different methodologies, both of them can provide insights into the user motivation process, incentive mechanism evaluation and community development. The target online community for my study is called Comtella, which is used in several senior Computer Science classes in the Department of Computer Science, University of Saskatchewan. Simulation models for the Comtella online community have been developed and the simulation results are useful to provide future directions for incentive mechanism improvement.

Managers are suffered from the high turnover rate in sales management. According to relative research results, pay systems have the most powerful impact on organizational performance among all the HR practices. Well-designed pay systems could attract and retain talent employees. They are also coupled with the effectiveness of performance evaluation, which stands for the aim of ensuring attaining organizational goals. Therefore, success or failure of an organization is significantly related to its pay system design. Because of its flexibility and responsiveness to organizational goals, variable pay possesses the ability to grant rewards linking employees to organizational success. From personnel economics perspective, monetary incentives have effects on output. However, a lack of data makes the above statement not corroborated. Based on a 60-month period data from a retailing company, this research conducts longitudinal analysis by fixed-effects regression model to empirically test the effects of variable pay on employees¡¦ job performance. Results verify the effects of variable pay on productivity. Those who are with individual level of performance measure, reasonable goal-setting and equitable payout formula characteristics show the best effect on productivity. Implications for designing variable pay systems are discussed and future research suggestions are provided.