Management Accounting Section Midyear Meeting

Subjectivity in Performance Evaluation and Group Identity as Antecedents of Employee Overwork

• In Event: Performance Measurement

Abstract

Employees often overwork by working longer than contractual or statutory standard working time for no immediate additional monetary gain. Despite its prevalence, little is understood about why employees overwork. I use an experiment to investigate how two key features of a firm’s management control system – the subjectivity in performance evaluation and the strength of employees’ identity with their colleagues (hereafter, group identity) – affect employees’ level of overwork. I find that the positive effect of subjectivity in performance evaluation on overwork is increasing in group identity strength. My study is important because understanding factors within firms that propagate overwork is consequential for firms that want to discourage such overwork due to its negative consequences. Understanding these factors also allows firms to have a more complete understanding of what motivates their employees.

Author

• Ala Ahmed Mokhtar, University of Waterloo