Love the Job... Or the Patient? Task vs. Mission-Based Motivations in Healthcare

24 Pages Posted: 27 Nov 2017

See all articles by Sheheryar Banuri

Sheheryar Banuri

University of East Anglia (UEA) - School of Economic and Social Studies; University of East Anglia (UEA) - Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS)

Philip Keefer

Inter-American Development Bank

Damien de Walque

World Bank - Development Research Group (DECRG); World Bank

Date Written: November 21, 2017

Abstract

A booming literature has argued that mission-based motives are a central feature of mission-oriented labor markets. We shift the focus to task-based motivation and find that it yields significantly more effort than mission-based. Moreover, in the presence of significant task motivation, mission motivation has no additional effect on effort. The evidence emerges from experiments with nearly 250 medical and nursing students in Burkina Faso. The students exert effort in three tasks, from boring to interesting. In addition, for half of the students, mission motivation is present: their effort on the task generates benefits for a charity. Two strong results emerge. First, task motivation has an economically important effect on effort, more than doubling effort. Second, mission motivation increases effort, but only for mundane tasks and not when the task is interesting. Even for mundane tasks, moreover, the effects of mission motivation appear to be less than those of task motivation.

Keywords: public sector reform, civil service, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, performance

JEL Classification: C91, H83, J45

Suggested Citation

Banuri, Sheheryar and Keefer, Philip and de Walque, Damien, Love the Job... Or the Patient? Task vs. Mission-Based Motivations in Healthcare (November 21, 2017). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3075457 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3075457

Sheheryar Banuri (Contact Author)

University of East Anglia (UEA) - School of Economic and Social Studies ( email )

Norwich, Norfolk NR4 7TJ
United Kingdom
+441603591246 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.uea.ac.uk/economics/people/profile/s-banuri

University of East Anglia (UEA) - Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) ( email )

United Kingdom
+441603591246 (Phone)

Philip Keefer

Inter-American Development Bank ( email )

1300 New York Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20577
United States
202-623-1961 (Phone)

Damien De Walque

World Bank - Development Research Group (DECRG)

1818 H. Street, N.W.
MSN3-311
Washington, DC 20433
United States

World Bank ( email )

1818 H Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20433
United States

HOME PAGE: http://econ.worldbank.org/staff/ddewalque

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