The DOI matches its Crossref record.
On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B
Abstract
Illustrations are presented from society in general, and from organizations in particular, of reward systems that “pay off” for one behavior even though the rewarder hopes dearly for another. Porti...
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“It is well known from practice (Kerr 1975) and from theory (Holmström and Milgrom 1991, Baker 1992) that in this situation explicit performance incentives may be harmful because they induce the employees to concentrate only on the rewarded tasks and to neglect the non-rewarded tasks.”
From Psychological foundations of incentives (2002) · cites this paper as Kerr 1975
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Cited by
The design and use of performance management systems: an extended framework for analysis
Ferreira, A., & Otley, D. (2009) · Management Accounting Research · doi:10.1016/j.mar.2009.07.003 · Cited by 1,412
Cognitive change, strategic action, and organizational renewal
Barr, P. S., Stimpert, J. L., & Huff, A. S. (1992) · Strategic Management Journal · doi:10.1002/smj.4250131004 · Cited by 1,290
Psychological foundations of incentives
Fehr, E., & Falk, A. (2002) · European Economic Review · doi:10.1016/s0014-2921(01)00208-2 · Cited by 1,240
League Tables and Their Limitations: Statistical Issues in Comparisons of Institutional Performance
Goldstein, H., & Spiegelhalter, D. J. (1996) · Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (Statistics in Society) · doi:10.2307/2983325 · Cited by 1,069
Implementation as mutual adaptation of technology and organization
Leonard-Barton, D. (1988) · Research Policy · doi:10.1016/0048-7333(88)90006-6 · Cited by 930
Metadata
- Authors
- Kerr, S.
- Corresponding author
- Kerr, S.
- Venue
- Academy of Management Journal
- Publisher
- Academy of Management
- Published
- 1975-12-01
- Volume
- 18
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 769-783
- ISSN
- 0001-4273 (ISSN-L)
- 1948-0989
- OpenAlex
- W2174179791
- Cited by
- 1,585
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 49 · 2025: 27 · 2024: 49 · 2023: 28 · 2022: 29 · 2021: 33 · 2020: 64 · 2019: 38 · 2018: 45 · 2017: 53 · 2016: 53 · 2015: 53 · 2014: 55 · 2013: 68 · 2012: 93
- FWCI
- 3.84
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Academy of Management Journal (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Management Theory and Practice
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Employee Performance and Motivation
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Accounting › Accounting and Organizational Management
- Keywords
- reward systems, performance-based pay, unintended consequences, organizational incentives, employee motivation, reward function design
- MeSH terms
- Commerce, Insurance, Health, Organization and Administration, Politics, Rehabilitation Centers, Reward, Universities, Warfare
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Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.2307/255378
- The paper
- Kerr, S. (1975). On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B. Academy of Management Journal. https://doi.org/10.2307/255378
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
