Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/320498 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 17904
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We evaluate a firm's unusual, worker-centered, solution to the agency problem: enabling employees to reduce the cost of effort rather than pushing them with performance rewards. We randomize the roll-out of the firm's "Discover Your Purpose" intervention among 2,976 white-collar employees and evaluate their outcomes over two years. We find that performance increases because the low performers either leave the firm or improve in their current jobs. The trade-off between meaning and pay flattens as those with low meaning and high pay leave the firm. Treatment also reshapes stated priorities and reduces gender gaps in preferences and behaviors, including uptake of parental leave. A cost-benefit analysis reveals high returns that are shared between the firm and the employees through higher bonuses. Finally, we show that observational data obscure these gains, causing firms to underestimate the intervention's true value.
Subjects: 
meaning-making
worker performance
worker motivation
incentives
JEL: 
J2
J3
M5
C93
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.