Paying Respect

W hy do people work? Economic theory generally, and the principal– agent model specifically, emphasize the role of material incentives. The standard assumption is that people work hard only if they receive monetary compensation for doing so. However, a substantial body of evidence contradicts the standard economic model. Many salaried academics, for example, work diligently year after year, continuing to exert themselves as they approach retirement, although financial incentives are then usually absent. We will argue that while economists have been right to focus on incentives, they have been wrong to focus so exclusively on material incentives. While workers appreciate monetary rewards, they also get utility from what (they believe that) others think about them. Thus, employers can pay their workers with a combination of monetary rewards and respect. Employers can help to fulfill employees’ desire for respect in at least four ways, each of which sheds some light on observed practices: First, attention from an employer can enhance the employee’s sense of being respected for good performance. Second, a manager or the employer can increase the value of respect by proving to be a worthy audience; for example, hard-working employees appreciate the respect of hard-working managers, and idealistic workers appreciate the respect of an idealistic employer. Third, the employer can influence the norms of respectability—that is, what traits gain respect in a certain workplace. Fourth, employers can affect what information about an