Abstract

This paper reports the results of a field experiment we ran in a Dutch retail chain selling lingerie and swimwear. Team incentives for sales performance were introduced in a random subset of stores. We examine whether the incentives resulted in better sales performance as well as study whether team incentives led to a change in task assignment in teams. We hypothesize that when teams are exposed to team incentives, task assignment relies more on performance considerations and less on favoritism, seniority, employees’ preferences over tasks, and fairness. We measure the importance of these considerations using questionnaires among employees held both before and after the experiment in both treated and control stores.