We examine whether knowledge sharing can enhance the efficacy of implicit, trust-based incentives. Using a stark laboratory experiment, we find support for theory suggesting that individuals believe that their knowledge is an important part of their identity, making it costly to share, but facilitating greater trust that recipients of this knowledge will reciprocate with future rewards. Utilizing participants with substantial work experience, results from additional scenario-based experiments demonstrate practical implications of this theory. Collectively, the results from our experiments show that individuals help others less when the help conveys personal knowledge relative to when it does not absent the prospect of rewards, but more when they can expect future rewards (i.e., with implicit incentives). Importantly, knowledge sharing increases the efficacy of implicit incentives more when they are determined by the help recipient relative to someone else (e.g., a supervisor). Collectively, we contribute to a better understanding of incentive systems designed to promote knowledge sharing in practice.

We examine the effect of more precise cost information on contract renegotiations between supply-chain parties. Specifically, we experimentally investigate the benefits of activity-based costing (ABC) information to address common supply-chain inefficiencies that are caused by the buyer or the seller, but have the same underlying costs. Results suggest that the impact of more precise cost information depends crucially on the cause of the inefficiency that parties need to address during the negotiation. ABC information increases the total joint profit in the supply chain. However, ABC information increases the seller's perceptions of the fairness of the buyer's arguments for contract changes only when the buyer causes the inefficiency but not when the seller causes the inefficiency. The combined effect of ABC information on joint profit and fairness perceptions thus increases the buyer's profit only when buyer causes the inefficiency but not when the seller causes the inefficiency. Data Availability: Data are available from the first author upon request.

This study examines how buyers and sellers react to CSR disclosures in competitive experimental markets. We examine the impact of two important policy interventions: whether assurance of CSR disclosures is present or not and whether sellers receive incentives to invest in CSR. Sellers, as preparers of the disclosures, reveal their levels of CSR investments (proxied by corporate giving), in addition to setting selling prices. These disclosures can be inaccurate. Buyers, as users of the disclosures, choose to do business with a seller and might do so for reasons beyond established prices (e.g., buy from sellers that invest more in CSR). The results of our market experiment show that assurance leads sellers to more accurately disclose their CSR investments. We further predict and find that the assurance of CSR disclosures affects economic outcomes (i.e., CSR investments and prices paid) in particular when sellers receive incentives to invest in CSR compared to when incentives are absent, because incentives can raise expectations among market participants that CSR is important. Results of an additional M-Turk experiment provide corroborating evidence that the use of sustainability incentives does raise social expectations among market participants with regard to CSR investments. We add new insights to the literature on economic effects of CSR reporting and the partner selection literature by showing when and how policy interventions can increase the impact of CSR disclosures.

We examine how incentive systems influence knowledge transfer between group members with equal or different status who solve an interdependent task. In our experiment, group members receive group or individual incentives, while status is manipulated by assigning job titles with corresponding role descriptions. Although all conditions require knowledge sharing to maximize payoffs, our results suggest that significantly more knowledge is shared under group incentives relative to individual incentives when status differences are present, whereas the amount of knowledge shared does not differ across these incentive manipulations for equal-status groups. These findings are in line with theory suggesting that individual incentives can motivate knowledge sharing among equal-status groups, but cannot overcome the negative interactions that arise under status differences. Instead, group incentives are required to induce cooperative behavior that mitigates the negative effects of status differences on knowledge sharing. We contribute to the literature and practice by showing that the effect of incentives depends on the social context and that job titles can have unintended consequences.

Organizations increasingly operate in uncertain environments, requiring employees to revise task strategies to remain effective. We examine how pay for performance (PFP) influences adaptive performance following unanticipated change and argue that process accountability moderates this effect. Although PFP increases effort, it hinders adaptation by reinforcing persistence with an existing task strategy. Process accountability channels PFP-induced motivation into deeper strategic deliberation, enabling adaptation. We test our predictions in an experiment manipulating compensation (PFP versus flat wage) and process accountability (absent, reflection-only, and present), with participants in the reflection-only condition privately reflecting on their decision-making to isolate the social-evaluative component. Results show that PFP, relative to a flat wage, decreases adaptive performance when process accountability is absent, has no significant effect under reflection-only, and increases it when process accountability is present. Additional analyses suggest that strategic deliberation partially explains this effect. The findings underscore pairing PFP with process accountability to foster adaptation. Data Availability: Data are available upon request.