My dissertation is composed of three sections. The first section examines the effect of monetary incentives on student performance in public education in Texas. I address how to deal with non-random samples caused by self-selection bias by using propensity score matching method. For the second part, using household level panel data, it addresses the substantial heterogeneity across demographic groups. In addition, for the last section, I also investigate firm’s optimal innovation strategy. It addresses the relationship among firm growth, firm size and firm behavior in the U.S. manufacturing industry. The first section investigates the causal relationship between a teacher incentive program (District Awards for Teacher Excellence (D.A.T.E.) Program) and student academic achievement in Texas by using school-grade level panel data. I find that D.A.T.E. schools obtain significantly higher student achievement gains in reading and math than non-D.A.T.E. schools after the implementation of the program. In addition, D.A.T.E. schools implementing selected school plan obtain greater student achievement gains than those implementing district wide plan. However, the causal effects are found mainly among middle school. Importantly, these findings imply that the teacher incentive program could be an effective policy tool in Texas for developing student performance, but should be cautiously implemented due to the difference in effects according to the U.S. school level. The second section shows that while financial benefit and moral hazard appears to be the main cause of bankruptcy for less educated individuals, well-educated individuals file due to negative income shocks. This is consistent with some evidence suggesting that educated individuals face greater stigma and/or worse information regarding bankruptcy than less-educated individuals. Importantly, these results imply that optimal bankruptcy policy should likely vary across different demographic groups. In the third section, I find that firm size is negatively related to firm growth and positively correlated with firm survivability in the manufacturing industry. R&D investment has a significantly positive effect on firm growth and survivability in the same industry. In the services industry, advertising investment causes a reverse effect on firm growth. This suggests that innovative activities should vary depending on the characteristics of each industry.

Incitament som styrningsmedel är idag en viktig del i ett företags arbete för att bidra till ökad produktivitet och effektivitet hos sina anställda. Både de monetära och icke-monetära incitamenten har i tidigare studier visat höja anställdas motivation. Tidigare forskning visar också att hållbart företagande idag är en nyckelfaktor för att företag ska lyckas. Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, är ett återkommande koncept som idag används av organisationer. Det ökade kravet från konsumenter har gjort att hållbarhet och det sociala ansvaret mot samhället har blivit allt viktigare för företag att förhålla sig till. Tidigare forskning visar på att CSR-arbete är motivationshöjande samt att incitament som styrningsmedel ökar produktiviteten hos företag. Det gör att det blir intressant att studera CSR som icke-monetärt incitament. Studiens syfte är att ge en ökad förståelse för CSR som incitament, där målet är att studera om CSR som icke-monetärt incitament är ett likvärdigt företagsekonomiskt styrningsmedel som monetära incitament. Studien har en abduktiv och kvalitativ metod där ett företag valdes att studera, Stadium AB. Intervjuer har genomförts med personer från olika avdelningar för att få en ökad förståelse om CSR som incitament. Studiens slutsats visar att CSR i vissa fall är ett likvärdigt incitament jämfört med monetära incitament. Dock kan den slutsatsen inte dras generellt över alla situationer. I flera fall, framförallt om miljö, har det framkommit att CSR-arbete är en självklarhet och måste finnas för att inte skapa missnöje, alltså en hygienfaktor. I andra fall är det direkt motivationshöjande. Med vissa villkor kan CSR anses vara ett likvärdigt incitament som monetära incitament om anställda tydligt kan se effekterna av arbetet och att kommunikationen sker på rätt sätt. Om en balans kring incitament som styrningsmedel kan skapas och stimulera både de inre- och yttre motivationsfaktorerna, kommer det resultera i högre arbetsmotivation. / Incentives as a means of control are today an important part of the company's work to contribute to the increased productivity and efficiency of its employees. Both the monetary and non-monetary incentives have shown in previous studies to raise employees´ motivation. Earlier research also shows that sustainable entrepreneurship today is a key factor for business success. Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, is a recurring concept used today by organizations. The increased demand from consumers has made sustainability and social responsibility towards society more and more important for a business to relate to. Previous research shows that CSR work is motivational and that incentives as a means of control increase the productivity of companies. This makes it interesting to study CSR as an incentive. The aim of the study is to give an increased understanding of CSR as an incentive, where the goal is to study whether CSR as a non-monetary incentive is an equivalent business-management instrument as monetary incentive. The study has an abductive and qualitative method where one company was chosen for study, Stadium AB. Interviews have been conducted with people from different departments to gain an understanding of CSR as an incentive. The study's conclusion shows that in some cases CSR is an equivalent incentive compared with monetary incentives. However, that conclusion cannot generally be drawn to all situations. In many cases, especially about the environment, it has been found that CSR work is a matter of course and must exist to not create dissatisfaction, i.e. a hygiene factor. In other cases, it is directly motivational. Under certain conditions, CSR can be considered as an equivalent incentive with monetary incentives if employees clearly can see the effects of the work and that the communication is done properly. If incentives are balanced as means of control and stimulate both the intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors, it will result in higher work motivation.

The purpose of the project was to determine if testosterone reactivity and neural changes could be observed in response to a reward-seeking competitive task, respectively, and whether testosterone was related to neural activation. Forty nine undergraduate students were recruited playing the Monetary Incentive Delay (MID). We found that a subset of participants (N=20) showed testosterone reactivity to the task (ps < .05). During the EEG analyses, cue had a main effect on FRN amplitude in a trend level (p = .084): The large incentive cue triggered smaller (less negative) FRN amplitude than the small incentive cue did (p < .05), especially during the second reward seeking block (A’) (p = .065) and especially within males (p < .05). Testosterone level and reactivity were not further associated with FRN amplitude (ps > .1). Taken together, results show both testosterone and FRN amplitude may be sensitive to a complex reward-seeking and competition.

Although human panelists provide unparalleled data, they are prone to bias, which is a primary concern of sensory scientists. Motivational bias is of concern because it determines how much effort a panelist will exert to be consistent, find a difference, or use appropriate descriptors when taking a test. For central location tests, money has become a common motivational device to compensate panelists for their time and effort. Studies have documented that money can change results in sensory testing but have not measured the impact on motivation. Additionally, little research has been conducted on the effect of the test food itself as a motivator. This scientific investigation explored monetary reward and the test food type as motivational factors to examine how these affected untrained panelist effort. Panelist accuracy on a triangle test and assessment time to complete the triangle test were measured as the response variables. Two models were generated using the two response variables, and both were adjusted for panelist age, gender, liking, time of day, and day of the week. Statistical analysis indicated that monetary compensation was not a primary motivational factor for untrained sensory panelists, but might play a role in panelist attendance. Food type impacted models differently showing its importance but also making results inconclusive. Other factors like gender, age, time of day, and day of the week were significant to a panelist's motivation and may be related to things like food involvement and workday accumulation, but more research is needed to further support these ideas. In addition to the study at hand, three preliminary studies were completed prior to obtaining the results in the main study. First, surveys gathering data on general liking of different foods were conducted. Triangle tests were then completed on potential products to confirm that treatments created for foods were not too obvious for panelists. The last preliminary step was to confirm that all differences used for treatment differences per product type were similarly different, even though not similar in nature. Difference from control tests were conducted on each product and its treatments to find how different a product's treatments were from each other. Eventually, we were able to verify that between all treatment difference couples for all products were similarly different by keeping the individual differences between a range of 10 points or 10% of a 100-point scale.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(医学) / 甲第20666号 / 医博第4276号 / 新制||医||1024(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院医学研究科医学専攻 / (主査)教授 伊佐 正, 教授 富樫 かおり, 教授 髙橋 良輔 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Medical Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

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.

Avoiding loss is a crucial, adaptive guide to human behavior. While previous developmental research has primarily focused on gaining rewards, less attention has been paid to loss processing and its avoidance. In daily life, it is often unknown how likely an action will result in a loss, making the role of uncertainty in loss processing particularly important. By using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we investigated the influence of varying outcome probabilities (12%, 34%, and 67%) on brain regions implicated in loss processing (ventral striatum (VS), anterior insula (AI)) by comparing 28 adolescents (10–18 years) and 24 adults (22–32 years) during the anticipation of potential monetary loss. Overall, results revealed slower RTs in adolescents compared to adults with both groups being faster in the experimental (monetary condition) vs. control trials (verbal condition). Fastest RTs were observed for the 67% outcome probability in both age groups. An age group × outcome probability interaction effect revealed the greatest differences between the groups for the 12% vs. the 67% outcome probability. Neurally, both age groups demonstrated a higher percent signal change in the VS and AI during the anticipation of potential monetary loss versus the verbal condition. However, adults demonstrated an even greater activation of VS and AI than adolescents during the anticipation of potential monetary loss, but not during the verbal condition. This may indicate that adolescents differ from adults regarding their experience of avoiding losing monetary rewards.