Research Seminar: “Giving away sales performance: A field study of the social practice around a bonus cap in a sales team”

The seminar is based on a paper written by Ivar Friis and Allan Hansen titled:  “Giving away sales performance: A field study of the social practice around a bonus cap in a sales team”

Abstract
This paper shows how a gift-giving practice has evolved in a sales team around its incentive system. By means of an in-depth case study, we demonstrate how sales people that have reached their bonus cap keep selling (rather than stop selling) even though they are no longer eligible for incentive payments. We suggest that this gift-giving practice reflects a norm of reciprocity, which is embedded both in a concern for fairness within the sales team but also reflects self-interest seeking. Furthermore, the practice insures the team members as well as the individual sales rep against uncertainty as well as management intervention. We contribute to extant research in two ways. First, we contribute to the management accounting and incentive literature in which solutions to motivational issues of bonus caps has been little discussed. We show how the gift-giving practice mitigates motivation problems related to caps in bonus systems, which has not been described in literature before.  Secondly, we contribute to the management control literature on complementarity by illustrating how specific design choices of the formal incentive system as well as social norms enter complementary relationships, which have not illustrated in the literature before.

Keywords: Incentive system design, caps, gift-giving, social control, group dynamics

The Agenda for the seminar is:
12:00-12:05 Introduction to the seminar by Carsten Ørts Hansen
12:05-12:30 Presentation of paper by Allan Hansen and Ivar Friis (distributed later)
12:30-13:00 Discussion and perspectives for the paper

Room: D4,20 Solbjerg Plads