Abstract

We ran a field experiment in a Dutch retail chain consisting of 128 stores. In a random sample of these stores, we introduced short-term sales competitions among subsets of stores. We find that sales competitions have a large effect on sales growth, but only in stores where the store's manager and a sufficiently large fraction of the employees have the same gender. Remarkably, results are alike for sales competitions with and without monetary rewards, suggesting a high symbolic value of winning a tournament.

doi.org/10.1086/667996, hdl.handle.net/1765/40300
ERIM Top-Core Articles
Journal of Labor Economics
Erasmus School of Economics

Delfgaauw, J., Dur, R., Sol, J., & Verbeke, W. (2013). Tournament incentives in the field: Gender differences in the workplace. Journal of Labor Economics, 31(2), 305–326. doi:10.1086/667996