Reactions to discrimination in an incentive pay compensation scheme: A game-theoretic approach

Keith Weigelt, Janet Dukerich, Andrew Schotter

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    In a series of experiments with undergraduate business students, some behavioral consequences of discrimination in an incentive compensation scheme were investigated. A game-theoretic approach was used to predict the choices subjects should make if they attempted to maximize monetary outcomes. Subjects, who were assigned to either an advantaged or disadvantaged condition, participated in an experiment in which they earned money based on their chosen decisions. The decision choices of the advantaged and disadvantaged groups were then compared to the predicted choices from the game-theory model. The results supported the predictions from the theory of tournaments only in the symmetric tournament, where there was no discrimination. When discrimination was introduced into the experiment, the observed choices of both advantaged and disadvantaged subjects were significantly greater than that predicted by the theory.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Pages (from-to)26-44
    Number of pages19
    JournalOrganizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
    Volume44
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Aug 1989

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Applied Psychology
    • Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

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