Page 53 - AIMA : Foundation Day Souvenir

THE IdEAl MOTIVATION
Dan Ariely’s ground-breaking work can help organisations understand the basic nuances underlying employee motivation.
Amit Mishra, Indian School Of Business, Hyderabad
Why is dan Ariely important?
Dan Ariely is a professor at Duke University, a trained psychologist, and a behavioural economist who is widely regarded as one of the most important scholars in his area. He is noted for his wide-ranging and incisive research on human behaviour
and psychology and has authored three best- selling books-Predictably Irrational, The Honest Truth about Dishonesty, and The Upside of Irrationality. Principal ideas emanating from his research on Behavioural Economics and Psychology are held in high regard in the academic circle.
Dan Ariely shot to notice when he challenged the basic notions of motivation in the organisation through his research. One of his most famous experiments was conducted at a semiconductor factory of Intel in Israel (Research was published in the paper titled- It’s (not) all about the Jacksons: Testing different types of short-term bonuses in the field, 2014) where employees, at the end of their workday, were given either a bonus of $30, a pizza voucher, or a text message complimenting their work by the boss. Pizza turned out to be the best motivational reward but eventually as the week passed, Ariely and his team
found that the compliment received from the boss had the best effect on the employees. The study concluded with the notion that employees prefer to be valued and appreciated, and their performance primarily dwelled upon appreciation by the boss over monetary benefits.
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