No Recognition Without Participation : A Field Experiment in the Workplace

Firms are increasingly pursuing employees’ participation programmes, yet field evidence on their impact on performance is scant. To study their effect on quality provision, we conduct a field experiment that exogenously determines whether workers participate or not in the design of a recognition scheme. Some workers vote on the scheme’s format and ranking system, whereas others have no voice. Workers and managers are blind to the research hypotheses and also to participating in a research study. The scheme backfires without employees’ participation: mistakes increase by around 50% in comparison with a control group and with employees who participated in the design of the scheme. This adverse effect is driven by mistakes affecting the organization’s management, rather than end-users or colleagues