Book Chapter in Encyclopedia of Global Studies, Edited Prizes and Awards, International

Awards such as orders, medals and decorations are a global phenomenon; they exist everywhere in society and in all times. They serve as signals to generally indicate socially desired behavior as well as motivators for individual persons. Awards in the form of orders, crosses, decorations, prizes, and titles, are non-material, but extrinsic incentives. The realm of awards is quite vague. The semantics are unclear and the various types of awards are not well defined. These unclear distinctions are no accident, but an important feature of awards. The suppliers of awards have an incentive to differentiate awards at many different levels and to continually create new awards. Awards are not just an indirect way of monetary compensation. There are major differences between awards and money, making it worthwhile to analyze awards as a separate phenomenon: • The material costs of awards, consisting of a certificate for the wall or a small trophy, are typically low for the donors, but the value to the recipients may be very high; • Accepting an award establishes a special relationship, in which the recipient owes (some measure of) loyalty to the donor. This is not true for monetary compensation; • Due to their vague nature, awards are more adequate incentive instruments than monetary payments when the recipient's performance can only be vaguely determined; • Awards are less likely to crowd out the intrinsic motivation of their recipients than monetary compensation.