Can nudges increase employee performance?

Evidence from two field experiments

Kirsten Thommes, Paderborn University
Christin Hoffmann, Brandenburg University of Technology

This presentation discusses findings from two experiments showing that nudges can improve the performance of truck drivers but that intrinsic motivation interacts with nudges and monetary incentives. Intrinsically motivated drivers did not deteriorate in performance after being nudged (experiment 1). they further improved in performance under gain contracts whereas less motivated drivers only responded to loss contracts (experiment 2).