Shaping Habits in Organizations: A Field Experiment

Lunch will be served.

Abstract
In a field experiment with 829 service technicians in 15 firms, we investigate whether providing a temporary incentive to engage in a novel task over a certain period of time leads to persistent behavior change. We randomly allocated half of the technicians in each firm to a treatment group who received bonuses for regularly performing sales activities for 12 weeks. We find a significant increase in sales performance not only during but also after the incentive phase. Using a post-experimental survey we compare different behavioral channels. We find no evidence for increased automaticity, human capital acquisition, or signals about task priorities, but strong evidence for the role of acquired taste: Technicians in the treatment group report a significantly higher levels of intrinsic motivation not only for the sales activity but also for another customer-oriented task.