企业管理系学术讲座系列：2024（22）

时间：2024年12月23日（周一） 9:30-11:00

地点：史带楼403

主题：Lost in Maze: An Action Research Study on Performance Pay Complexity

主讲人：赵海临 Associate Professor

Department of Management and Strategy， The University of Hong Kong

主持人：陈星汶副教授

摘要：

The primary purpose of pay-for-performance (PFP) systems is to incentivize employees by tying job performance to monetary rewards. However, as the PFP system evolves, there is a disorganized accumulation of performance pay complexity that might inadvertently obscure the primary purpose of the system. Our paper challenges the implicit assumption in compensation research that adding complexity to PFP systems is essential, or at least inevitable, for system effectiveness. We argue that there exists a critical threshold beyond which the escalation of complexity will significantly undermine system effectiveness. In a large manufacturing factory, we collaborated with factory managers to assess its existing PFP system and determined that its excessive—job performance was not even correlated with performance-based pay. To address this problem, we designed a systems intervention that removes redundant or constraining relationships in the PFP system, neutralizing the feedback loops that undermine the incentive effect of performance-based pay on job performance. We found that not only did the link between performance and pay strengthen, but also the job performance of frontline workers significantly improved. Our study underscores the importance of considering performance pay complexity in PFP systems and calls for managerial attentiveness to periodically review and update the system to manage complexity effectively.

嘉宾简介：

赵海临（Helen Hailin ZHAO）博士现任香港大学经济及工商管理学院管理战略方向副教授。研究方向包括工作设计，时间感知，薪酬设计、绩效管理等。其研究在国际管理学顶级期刊如Academy of Management Journal和Journal of Applied Psychology等均有发表，其研究成果在实践类期刊The Wall Street Journal和Harvard Business Review等发表或引用。