Do group incentives enhance coworker helping? An experimental evaluation

Coworker helping is a discretionary workplace behavior that contributes to organizational performance but carries private costs to helpers. We develop a simple theoretical model showing that group-based compensation increases helping effort relative to individual piece-rates and test these predictions using a controlled laboratory experiment that collects direct observations of coworker helping. Our experimental design features a novel real-effort task where subjects complete work independently or with real-time help from an anonymously paired coworker. Subjects were randomly assigned to either an individual piece-rate or a group compensation scheme. The results from the study demonstrate that subjects in the group compensation scheme exhibited both requesting and providing help at substantially higher rates than those under individual piece-rates. After controlling for gender and personality characteristics, helping behavior was nearly three times greater under group compensation. These findings provide direct experimental evidence confirming longstanding theoretical predictions about compensation structure and coworker helping and offer methodological insights for future research on interpersonal helping behaviors in organizational settings.