Love the Job... or the Patient? : Task vs. Mission-Based Motivations in Health Care

Banuri, Sheheryar ; Keefer, Philip ; de Walque, Damien

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: PUBLIC SECTOR REFORM;    CIVIL SERVICE;    INTRINSIC MOTIVATION;    EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION;    PERFORMANCE INCENTIVES;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-8338
RP-ID  :  WPS8338

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

A booming literature has argued thatmission-based motives are a central feature ofmission-oriented labor markets. This paper shifts the focusto task-based motivation and finds that it yieldssignificantly more effort than mission-based motivation.Moreover, in the presence of significant task motivation,mission motivation has no additional effect on effort. Theevidence emerges from experiments with nearly 250 medicaland nursing students in Burkina Faso. The students exerteffort in three tasks, from boring to interesting. Inaddition, for half of the students, mission motivation ispresent: their effort on the task generates benefits for acharity. Two strong results emerge. First, task motivationhas an economically important effect on effort, more thandoubling effort. Second, mission motivation increaseseffort, but only for mundane tasks and not when the task isinteresting. Moreover, even for mundane tasks, the effectsof mission motivation appear to be less than those of task motivation.