Abstract
Aside from money, what works best to incentivize work teams? Using a randomized field experiment, I test whether fixed-wage workers respond better to private rank incentives or public recognition, and whether image motivation crowds out intrinsic motivation. School-feeding teams in 450 South-African schools were randomly assigned to (i) receiving private feedback through rank information, (ii) public recognition through symbolic award, (iii) both feedback and award, or (iv) no intervention. The analysis yields two main findings. First, while private feedback and public award are more effective when offered separately, receiving feedback on performance boosts effort more than public recognition. Second, image motivation crowds out intrinsic motivation, especially for low-ability teams. This suggests that providing performance feedback can be an effective policy for leveraging intrinsic motivation and improving service delivery, more so than mechanisms leveraging image motivation.
Highlights
Background and InterventionThis section describes South Africa’s National School Nutrition Programme and the school-meal delivery system in the Western Cape
Teams competing for the public award but not receiving performance feedback score slightly higher than teams in comparison schools in the second semester, but that difference is only significant at the 10-percent level after controlling for potential confounding factors
The public award marginally raises safety and delivery scores. These results suggest that the effects of feedback and award are concentrated on different performance areas, with private feedback largely increasing staff motivation, and public award marginally improving adherence to quality and safety standards of meal delivery
Summary
Since its enactment in 1994, the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) aims to provide students in South Africa with “daily nutritious school meals to combat hunger, promote learning, and improve nutrition education in struggling communities.” Nationally, it mandates the provision of all students in low-quintile schools with cooked meals that comply with prescribed nutritional standards before ten o’clock in the morning. In the year covered in this study, the Peninsula School Feeding Association (PSFA) was responsible for provision of school meals to 497 qualified schools mandated through the government program in the Western Cape Province. Several cooks are hired at each school, with the number varying depending on the number of students being fed Their responsibilities include preparing the food, serving the food on time, cleaning up after the meal, and managing the stock. They are paid a monthly stipend of R700 by PSFA. Each school appoints a supervisor to oversee the work of the cooks and receives regular visits of PSFA employees to monitor implementation and help troubleshoot problems faced by the workers
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