Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, China
Pay for performance, based on the assumption of "rational individuals" and stemming from self-interest-oriented incentives, how does it affect "irrational" altruistic behavior? Regarding this question, past studies have primarily focused on the individual level and yielded inconsistent results. This study, drawing on model of team altruism, explores how a pay-for-performance design that integrates “individual incentives” with “collective incentives” enhances helping-related motivations and behaviors at team level. By analyzing the objective salary data of 1,010 employees from 201 branches of a large state-owned bank, alongside matched “employee-leader” survey data at three time points, we found the following results: (1) The interaction between individual-based pay-for-performance intensity and collective-based pay-for-performance intensity is positively related to the team cooperative strategy using motivation; (2) The team cooperative strategy using motivation is positively associated with team helping behavior, and this relationship strengthens as team prosocial motivation increases; (3) Overall, the higher the collective-based pay-for-performance intensity and team prosocial motivation, the stronger the mediating effect of the individual-based pay-for-performance intensity on team helping behavior through team cooperative strategy using motivation. These results not only delineate which kind of team-level pay-for-performance design can foster helping behavior among members, but also enhance scholars’ understanding of the motivations of team altruistic behaviors.
