Master thesis about employee incentives
Empirical analysis on what the future of work implies for the future of
employee incentives
Motivation
Employees, the organization’s human capital, have always been crucial for organizational success,
and in today’s digital age the strategic importance for high-performing, engaged employees is growing
as never before (Levine, 2018; Mingardon et al., 2017; Ogbonnaya et al., 2017). If the individual
attitudes and behaviors of the employees are not aligned with organizational goals, it can cause
suboptimal performance, inefficiency, and organizational dysfunction (Guth & MacMillan, 1986; Hope
& Thomas, 2008). Thus, engaging employees to achieve organizational goals is a crucial task for
management.
Many organizations have implemented employee incentives intended to draw attention, motivate,
direct, or just generally influence employees so that they go the extra mile and behave as desired to
achieve organizational goals (Greene, 2011; Leape et al., 2020; Ogbonnaya et al., 2017). Employee
incentives are provided under the assumption that they “stimulate sustained and directed effort toward
attaining a valued goal” (Pearsall et al. 2010, p. 184). Incentives thereby provide “predetermined cri-
teria and standards, as well as understood policies for determining and allocating rewards” (Greene,
2011, p. 219). In practice, various types of incentives are applied, anything – monetary and non-
monetary – that provides some sort of viable and valuable gain to the employee including bonuses,
profit sharing, stock option, promotions, awards, health benefits, travel vouchers, status, and recog-
nition (Cerasoli et al., 2014; Incentive Research Foundation, 2021; Meyer-Doyle & Marshall, 2010).
“The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted labor markets globally” (Lund et al., 2021, p. 1) and now, more
and more organizations are evolving into models for the future of work in which skilled, healthy,
performant, and engaged employees remain of strategic importance. Yet the fundamental changes
towards future of work models question if the employee incentives are still future-proofed (e.g.,
employees value specific benefits differently (e.g., leisure account & health over promotion), employ-
ees feel disconnected with the organization requesting new benefits that ensure a sense of being
valued and belonging) (e.g., Aufreiter et al. 2021, Allen 2021, Batish et al. 2020, Cooper 2005, Groys-
berg et al. 2021, Lund et al 2021, Malhotra 2021, Spiegel & Fronstin 2020)
Considering the relevance of effective employee incentives to influence employees' behaviors, and
their impact on organizational efficiency and effectiveness, in general, but especially in the context of
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the future of work, this project aims to answer the following questions: What does the future of work
imply for the future of employee incentives? How can we future-proof incentives?
Methodology
To empirically explore how COVID-19 and related remote work measures have affected the effective-
ness of established employee incentives, several master students (in separate master thesis projects)
are asked to use a qualitative (interviews) variance study.
The students are asked to identify and approach each one organizational department or company
for the qualitative study (interviews) him or herself based on the following selection criteria: (a) Op-
erating model fundamentally changed in the last years (e.g., R&D departments – work was driven by
collaboration, experimenting/prototyping, combined with undisturbed times to think, and interaction
with customers - and sales departments – whose work was driven by traveling and face-to-face meet-
ings with customers), (b) established incentives prior the change of the operating model, (c) office
related, mainly computer-based work, (d) teamwork/collaboration is a crucial part in daily work.
The students are asked to follow the data collection methods (incl. interview guidelines) provided by
me. These are mainly two sources of data: (1) structured with HR and (2) semi-structured, open
interviews with the employees. After conducting the interviews, the students are asked to tran-
scribe, code, and analyze the data.
Over the entire process of your master thesis, you are closely supported and supervised by me.
Contact
Please contact Theresa Kaiser (Theresa.Kaiser@tum.de) if you are interested in this master the-
sis or have any further questions.
We are looking for several students who are in an advanced semester of a business-related degree
program, motivated to work intensively on this exciting and important topic, and preferably have first
experiences with interview-based research.
Your application should include all required documents as listed on the chair’s website (incl. CV,
Transcript of Records). You are welcome to apply with peer students or alone. The start is flexible,
however, possible as of now.
We are looking forward to receiving your application!
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Literature
Allen, T. (2021). The pandemic is changing employee benefits. Harvard Business Review.
https://hbr.org/2021/04/the-pandemic-is-changing-employee-benefits
Aufreiter, B., Bisson, P., Mulligan, M., & Huber, C. (2021). The board's role during crisis and beyond.
The McKinsey Podcast. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corpo-
rate-finance/our-insights/the-boards-role-during-crisis-and-beyond
Batish, A., Gordon, A., Larcker, D.F., Tayan, B., Watts, E.M., & Yu, C. (2020). Sharing the pain: How
did boards adjust CEO pay in response to COVID-19? Stanford closer look series.
Cerasoli, C. P., Nicklin, J. M., & Ford, M. T. (2014). Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic incentives jointly
predict performance: A 40-year meta-analysis. Psychological bulletin, 140(4), 980.
Cooper, C. L.. (2005). The future of work: Careers, stress and well-being. Career Development Inter-
national, 10 (5), p. 396-399.
Greene, R. J. (2011). Rewarding performance: Guiding principles, custom strategies. New York, NY:
Routledge.
Groysberg, B, Abbott, S., Marino, M.R., & Aksoy, M. (2021). Compensation packages that actually
drive performance. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2021/01/compensation-pack-
ages-that-actually-drive-performance
Guth, W. D., & MacMillan, I. C. (1986). Strategy implementation versus middle management self‐
interest. Strategic management journal, 7(4), 313-327.
Incentive Research Foundation. (2021). The IRF 2021 Trends Report. https://theirf.org/research/the-
irf-2021-trends-report/3046/
Hope, O. K., & Thomas, W. B. (2008). Managerial empire building and firm disclosure. Journal of
accounting research, 46(3), 591-626.
Leape, S., Zou, J., Loadwick, O., Nuttall, R., Stone, M., & Simpson, B. (2020) More than a mission
statement: How the 5Ps embed purpose to deliver value. The McKinsey Quarterly.
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-in-
sights/more-than-a-mission-statement-how-the-5ps-embed-purpose-to-deliver-value
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Levine, S.R. (2018). Motivated employees are key to your company’s success in the Digital Age.
Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesinsights/2018/03/12/motivated-employees-are-
key-to-your-companys-success-in-the-digital-age/?sh=61d91ff42ddc.
Lund, S., Madgavkar, A., Manyika, J., Smit, S., Ellingrud, K., & Meaney, M. (2021). The future of work
after COVID-19. McKinsey Global Institute Report. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-in-
sights/future-of-work/the-future-of-work-after-covid-19.
Malhotra, A., Majchrzak, A. & Bingham, A.. (2021). A Future of Work and Organizations. Management
and Business Review, 1 (2).
Meyer-Doyle, P., & Marshall, W. M. (2010). Combining financial and organizational incentives to better
align individual behaviour with organizational goals, Social science research network.
Mingardon, S., Wolfgang, M., Keenan, P., Krief, A., Doust, A., & Adida, F. (2017). Digital-Era change
runs on people power. Bosten Consulting Group. https://www.bcg.com/de-de/publica-
tions/2017/change-management-organization-digital-era-change-runs-people-power
Ogbonnaya, C., Daniels, K., & Nielsen, K. (2017). Research: How incentive pay affects employee
engagement, satisfaction, and trust. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2017/03/re-
search-how-incentive-pay-affects-employee-engagement-satisfaction-and-trust
Pearsall, M. J., Christian, M. S., & Ellis, A. P. (2010). Motivating interdependent teams: Individual
rewards, shared rewards, or something in between?. Journal of applied psychology, 95(1),
183.
Spiegel, J., & Fronstin, P. (2020). Future of Health Benefits in the Workplace: Employers' Perspectives
During the COVID-19 Crisis. Employee Benefit Research Institute Issue Brief, 517, 1-12.
