To gain or not to lose? The effect of monetary reward on motivation and knowledge contribution

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of reward type on knowledge contribution behavior. Individual knowledge contribution, which determines the effectiveness of information systems, benefits the organization at the cost of individual advantage as knowledge is usually considered highly private or even a source of individual prestige. Therefore, organizations provide rewards to compensate for their contributors’ knowledge loss. Surprisingly, some scholars report a positive relationship between reward and knowledge contribution, while others find this relationship to be insignificant or even negative. Based on regulatory focus theory, this study proposes and tests that such inconsistencies result from disparity between reward type and knowledge contribution measures. Design/methodology/approach A between-group laboratory experiment with 144 undergraduate student is designed and hierarchical regression is applied to test the hypotheses. Findings An incremental reward (additional reward for attaining outstanding achievements) aroused individual promotion focus, leading to an increase in self-perceived knowledge contribution (self-reported) and knowledge contribution quantity (experiment observers rated), but a decrease in knowledge contribution quality (peer rated). However, a decremental reward (deducted for errors) primed individual prevention focus, leading to an increase in self-perceived knowledge contribution (self-reported) and knowledge contribution quality (peer rated), but a decrease in knowledge contribution quantity (experiment observers rated). Originality/value The findings help explain why previous empirical results on the reward-knowledge contribution relationship were inconsistent and add to extant literature by introducing a new theoretical perspective for understanding motivation in knowledge management research.