Smokers require high motivation to quit smoking and to remain smoke-free. Worksites might enhance motivation to be smoke-free by offering incentives to employees who quit smoking. A pilot study was conducted where one worksite offered a smoking cessation group plus several incentive programs. The incentives included money and public recognition based on individual performance, and dinners based on group performance. After 12 months, 48% of participants remained smoke-free. This result is significantly different [x2(1)= 3.910, p<.05]. from the results of a smoking cessation group conducted a comparable company (here, 18% of participants remained smoke-free). Another study was designed where one worksite would offer a smoking cessation group, and another worksite would offer an incentive program plus a smoking cessation group. Treatment conditions were randomly assigned. Both worksites were part of the same parent company (General Electric), thus minimizing differences between the companies. Many dimensions of the worksites and of participants at each worksite were assessed to demonstrate comparability between the worksites. In the incentive condition monetary incentives were offered. Participants received $10 for not smoking for two weeks, four weeks. five weeks. six weeks, eight weeks and ten weeks. They received $20 for not smoking after three, four, five and six months. They received $25 for not smoking after nine months and 12 months. Their exhaled air was assessed on a carbon monoxide detector before receiving monetary rewards. As a result, 54% of the 28 participants were smoke-free after nine months. In the non-incentive condition, participants were offered the same smoking cessation program but without major incentives. Participants were assessed on the carbon monoxide machine for five of the six consecutive months after the program ended. They were also assessed at the nine-month mark. Here, 44% of the 16 participants were smoke-free after nine months. Both interventions, then, were very successful. As a result none of the hypotheses of this study were supported. This study did not employ a strong research design, and unforeseen changes in procedures weakened the study's validity. Despite these shortcomings, these interventions have merit. The intervention enabled a high percentage of people to quit smoking. These results might encourage smokers who want to quit. Given the success of these programs, hopefully a well-controlled study will be conducted to ascertain the effects of incentives and rewards upon worksite smoking interventions. / Ph. D.

The attrition rate of hypothetically able teachers has caused much concern. Job incentives, if valued by teachers, may aid in solving this problem. Teacher-identified incentives might lead to the development of more productive incentive programs than those offered by school districts. The purpose of this research study was to identify incentives valued by elementary teachers. Characteristics of teachers and values placed on incentives were examined to discover whether relationships exist between them. The literature revealed that many variables influence the retention of motivated teachers. It is fundamental to an organization's existence to find positive incentives and reduce or eliminate disincentives. Teachers receive their major rewards from classroom accomplishments. intrinsically motivated. A fixed-response survey was administered to elementary teachers in three schools in different school districts in Virginia. Frequency analysis was used to determine which incentives were most valued. Incentive ranking and demographic characteristics were cross-tabulated to determine if there were any relationship between them. In addition, analysis of variance was used to determine if values placed on incentives vary with pay scales. The study identified 17 incentives considered very important by a select sample of teachers. Teaching experience was found as a correlate in the selection of incentives. Teaching in a particular school district was found related to the value placed on 25% of the incentives. / Ed. D.

This thesis explores the impacts of the Partnership for Incentive-Based Budgeting (PIBB) model at Virginia Tech (VT), a land-grant institution. By conducting a mixed-methods approach including semi-structured interviews, document analysis, and a review of political theory, this research examines the differences in perceptions of employees across employee classifications, academic area, and financial experience at VT on the PIBB model, unhealthy internal competition, communications, fiscal policy, and political influence. The PIBB model was adopted at VT as a strategic response to reduced state funding and aims to encourage budget management improvements and collaborative planning across the university. Findings indicate that while the PIBB model is designed to align financial incentives with the university's academic and operational goals, it may also foster unhealthy, internal competition among faculty, staff, and administrative units. This competition arises from the pressure to meet specific performance metrics linked to budgetary allocations, potentially leading to conflicts and misalignment with the university's broader educational objectives –underscoring the need for a balanced approach to budgeting that supports both financial sustainability and academic integrity. Complexities of implementing market-driven budgeting models within academic settings suggests that while such models can drive efficiency, they must be managed carefully to avoid undermining the core mission of educational institutions. This thesis contributes to ongoing discussions about the optimization of resource allocation in public higher education. / Master of Arts / This thesis looks at how the Partnership for Incentive-Based Budgeting (PIBB) model, implemented at Virginia Tech (VT), impacts various aspects of the university. Using a combination of interviews, document analysis, and a look into political theory, the research investigates how different employees at VT perceive the PIBB model, its effects on internal dynamics like competition, communication, financial policies, and political influences. The PIBB model was implemented as a result in the decline in state money going to VT and to help manage the budget better and collaboration across the university. This thesis research found that while the PIBB model tries to link money incentives with university goals, it also creates unhealthy competition among faculty, staff, and units within the university. This competition happens as everyone wants to meet certain goals to get more money, which can take away from the main goal of the university, which is education. The study shows that it is important to find a balance between the university's goals being at the forefront but also managing the money appropriately. It also shows that using budgeting methods based on business ideas in a public university is tricky and needs careful management to keep the university's values intact. Overall, this research adds to the conversation about how we can best use money in public colleges to make them better for everyone.

In November 2022, the Swedish government decided to abolish the electric vehicle (EV) policyincentive “Klimatbonus”. We create a synthetic control group based on other countries withsimilar continuous policies to gauge the outcome of EV registration in Sweden had theabolishment not occurred. The purpose of this study was to estimate whether this decision hasgenerated a significant post-abolishment impact on the demand for EVs in the Swedish carmarket. Our findings show that even though the demand has decreased, the result is statisticallyinsignificant. We conclude the policymakers have correctly estimated that the effects ondemand will be small. With this study, we contribute to evaluating the treatment effects ofabolished EV policies.

A long-standing and fundamental question in the field of business ethics concerns the status of corporate moral agency. Is it possible for a corporation to constitute a moral agent in the same way as an individual can? Many collectivist theories have attempted to answer this question in the affirmative. An influential contribution to this discussion is made by Christian List and Phillip Pettit in Group Agency: The Possibility, Design and Status of Corporate Agents (2011). In this work, the authors argue for the possibility of corporate moral agency by grounding it in certain rational capacities realizable both by individuals and corporations. Important for their project is the concept of incentive compatibility, taken from the literature on mechanism design. The authors introduce this concept as a desideratum for good organizational design, and as a component for the proper functioning of a corporate moral agent. In this paper, I give an account of and critically examine List and Pettit’s theory. Specifically, I problematize the two strategies presented by the authors in their program to demonstrate how this desideratum might be satisfied. The first strategy encounters problems when faced with impossibility results associated with judgment aggregation, familiar from the literature on social choice. The second strategy is complicated by inconsistencies that arise in connection to the underlying premises in regards to human psychology and rationality, established early on by the authors. This presents significant obstacles for the authors’ larger project. If both strategies fail, and a corporation is unable to reach a state of incentive compatibility, then it also fails to function properly as an agent according to List and Pettit’s own definitions. If an entity is unable to function properly as an agent, then, I argue, there seems to be no reason to attribute agency to it.

Inducement prizes-where cash rewards are given to motivate the attainment of targets--have been long used to encourage scientific research, develop technological innovations, or stimulate individuals, groups, and communities to accomplish diverse goals. Lately, prizes have increasingly attracted the attention of policy-makers, among others, due to their potential to induce path-breaking innovations and accomplish related goals. Academic research, however, has barely investigated these prizes in spite of their long history, recent popularity, and notable potential. This research investigates prizes and the means by which they induce innovation. It uses an empirical, multiple case-study methodology, a new model of innovation applied to prizes, and multiple data sources to investigate three cases of recent aerospace technology prizes: a main case study, the Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP) for robotic Moon exploration; and two pilot cases, the Ansari X Prize (AXP) for the first private reusable manned spacecraft and the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge (NGLLC) for flights of reusable rocket-powered vehicles. The investigation unveils the dynamics of prizes and contributes a better understanding of their potential and disadvantages in a context in which more traditional mechanisms are used to induce innovation. This research shows that prizes are a more complex mechanism and their investigation requires analyzing entrant- and context-level factors generally not considered by the literature. Prizes complement and not replace patents and other incentive mechanisms. The incentives offered by prizes attract entrants with diverse characteristics, including unconventional entrants--individuals and organizations generally not involved with the prize technologies. Entrants are generally attracted by the non-monetary benefits of participation and the potential market value of the technologies involved in competitions. Many more volunteers, collaborators, and partners also participate indirectly and support official entries as they also perceive opportunities to accomplish their personal and organizational goals. The monetary reward is important to position the competition in the media and disseminate the idea of the prize. Prizes can induce increasing R&D activities and re-direct industry projects to target diverse technological goals, yet the evolution of prize competitions and quality of the technological outputs is generally difficult to anticipate. The overall organization of prize R&D activities and their outputs depend on entrant-level factors and can only be indirectly influenced by setting specific competition rules. The most remarkable characteristic of prize R&D activities is their interaction with fundraising efforts which, in some circumstances, may constrain the activities of entrants. Prizes can also induce innovation over and above what would have occurred anyway, yet their overall effect depends significantly on the characteristics of the prize entrants and the evolution of the context of the competition. The ability of prizes to induce innovation is larger when there are larger prize incentives, more significant technology gaps implicit in the prize challenge, and open-ended challenge definitions. To successfully induce technological breakthroughs, prizes may require complementary incentives (e.g. commitments to purchase technology) or support (e.g. seed funding.) Prizes are particularly appropriate to, for example, explore new, experimental methods and technologies that imply high-risk R&D; induce technological development to break critical technological barriers; accelerate technological development to achieve higher performance standards; and, accelerate diffusion, adoption, and/or commercialization of technologies. They involve, however, higher programmatic risks than other more traditional mechanisms and their routine use, and/or challenge definitions that overlap, can weaken the incentive power of the mechanism. Successful implementation of competitions requires many parameters to be properly set.

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Bakgrund: Kunskapsintensiva organisationer upplever svårigheter när det kommer till att behålla medarbetare och de tvingas således arbeta för att hantera den frivilliga personalomsättningen. Den svenska advokatbranschen genomgår förändring och medarbetare byter arbetsgivare i allt större utsträckning. Samtidigt pågår diskussioner kring huruvida monetära- och icke-monetära incitamentssystem påverkar medarbetarnas motivation, arbetstillfredsställelse och engagemang. Därav har intresset väckts för att studera huruvida incitamentssystem påverkar den frivilliga personalomsättningen inom advokatbyråer verksamma i Sverige. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att skapa en ökad förståelse för hur incitamentssystem påverkar den frivilliga personalomsättningen inom advokatbyråer verksamma i Sverige. Metod: Studien innehar en kvalitativ forskningsstrategi och ett konstruktionistisktperspektiv. Arbetet följer en abduktiv ansats och en tematisk analys används viddata analysen. Syftet och forskningsfrågorna besvaras genom att utnyttja en flerfallsstudie på två olika advokatbyråer verksamma i Sverige, där 14 semi-strukturerade intervjuundersökningar ligger till grund för inhämtandet av det empiriska materialet. Slutsats: Studien påvisar att kunskapsintensiva organisationer bör utforma incitamentssystem med både monetära och icke-monetära incitament där en förståelse för att incitamentssystem kan påverka andra medarbetare än vad som var avsett är viktig. Monetära incitament tycks påverka arbetstillfredsställelsen men har begränsad effekt på medarbetarnas motivation och engagemang. De icke-monetära incitamenten tenderar att påverka den frivilliga personalomsättningen i större utsträckning / Background: Knowledge-intensive organizations experience difficulties when it comes to retaining employees and they are obliged to handle the voluntary turnover. The Swedish law branch of industry experiences a period of change where employees change employers to a greater extent. At the same time, there are ongoing discussions about how monetary- and non-monetary incentives affect employee motivation, job satisfaction and commitment. Therefore, it is interesting to study how incentive systems affect voluntary turnover in Swedish law firms. Purpose: The study aims to increase the understanding of how incentive systems affect the voluntary turnover in Swedish law firms. Methodology: The study is designed according to a qualitative research strategy and has a constructionist perspective. The work follows an abductive approach, and a thematic analysis is used when analyzing the data. The purpose and research questions are answered by utilizing a multiple-case study of two Swedish law firms, where 14 semistructured interviews generate the empirical material. Conclusion: The study shows that knowledge-intensive organizations should design incentive systems with both monetary and non-monetary incentives where an understanding that incentive systems can affect other employees than what was intended is important. Monetary incentives seem to affect job satisfaction but have a limited effect on employee motivation and commitment. The non-monetary incentives tend to affect voluntary employee turnover to a greater extent.

The Swedish energy markets inspectorate (Ei) regulates the Swedish DSOs revenue cap, to ensure reasonable prices, efficiency, and quality of supply towards the end users. In combination with directives from the European Union and Sweden's environmental goal, Ei implemented efficient grid utilization to the DSOs revenue cap in 2016. The efficient grid utilization can be divided into two incentives: load flow and network losses. Criticism regarding the load flow incentive, and the indicator used to calculate it, has been raised from the industry. The purpose of this degree project was to investigate the possibilities of a new indicator that also could be affected by the DSOs actions. The project identified four main indicators to test, weighted load factor, utilization factor, adjusted utilization factor and a utilization factor that incorporates all local production units. The indicators were calculated with data from a regional and local grid, provided by the Swedish DSO Ellevio. Other parameter changes such as peaks and seasonal based calculations were also tested. To see the impact DSOs could have on the indicator, with today's regulations, was detected to be through load shaving and shifting, demand side management (DSM). MATLAB was used to test the impact DSM had on the indicators. Further, a load prediction for the years 2023–2035, based on provided historical data, was executed to test the indicators long-term outcome. The project concluded that the regional grid had little to non-impact on the indicators with DSM whilst the local grid resulted in high increased outcome for most indicators. The project continues to conclude to separate indicators for the regional and local grid, to better represent the two grids characteristic and purpose in Swedish society. The adjusted utilization factor was proposed for the regional grid, due to its non-negative impact from installing renewable energy resources, and the weighted load factor for the local grid due to being highly affected by DSM. Lastly, the project concluded that the indicator needs to be changed and further developed for regional DSOs, for them to have the opportunity to affect it.

The effective management of individual/team performance is a crucial requirement to ensure that organisational goals are attained. This requires accurate data regarding the performance levels of individuals/teams. Therefore there is a need for a standardised and formal performance management system. An effective performance management system is the centre of an integrated HR system that feeds into a variety of processes and systems such as career planning, rewards, training and development, promotions, and disciplinary decisions. Despite the importance of performance management, most organisations find it difficult to implement, manage and sustain performance management systems and processes effectively. The focus of this study is on appraising the performance management practices in the offices of the Department of Labour in three provinces: Gauteng, Limpopo and Mpumalanga. The results indicate problems with the practices in areas such as alignment, fairness, measuring commitment, systems integrity, and the performance management culture. Recommendations were made to address these issues and improve the effectiveness of the system / Human Resource Management / M. Tech. (Human Resource Development)