Competition and Social Identity in the Workplace: Evidence from a Chinese Textile Firm

Takao Kato; Pian Shu

doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2016.07.014

Competition and Social Identity in the Workplace: Evidence from a Chinese Textile Firm

Takao Kato, Pian Shu

Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review

152 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

We study the impact of social identity on worker competition by exploiting the well-documented social divide between urban resident workers and rural migrant workers in urban Chinese firms. We analyze data on weekly output, individual characteristics, and coworker composition for all weavers in an urban Chinese textile firm during a 53-week period. The firm adopts relative performance incentives in addition to piece rates to encourage competition in the workplace. We find that social identity has a significant impact on competition: a weaver only competes against coworkers with a different social identity, but not against those sharing her own identity. The results are mainly driven by urban weavers competing aggressively against rural coworkers. Our results highlight the important role of social identity in mitigating or enhancing competition.

Original language	English
Journal	Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization
Volume	131
Issue number	Part A
Pages (from-to)	37-50
Number of pages	14
ISSN	0167-2681
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2016.07.014
Publication status	Published - Nov 2016

Keywords

Social identity
Coworker effect
Productivity
Relative performance incentive
Intergroup competition

Access to Document

10.1016/j.jebo.2016.07.014Licence: Unspecified

takao_kato_competition_and_social_identity_postprintAccepted author manuscript, 676 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Find title in CBS Library

Cite this

@article{364b11ff881a44d9a01217458c492002,

title = "Competition and Social Identity in the Workplace: Evidence from a Chinese Textile Firm",

abstract = "We study the impact of social identity on worker competition by exploiting the well-documented social divide between urban resident workers and rural migrant workers in urban Chinese firms. We analyze data on weekly output, individual characteristics, and coworker composition for all weavers in an urban Chinese textile firm during a 53-week period. The firm adopts relative performance incentives in addition to piece rates to encourage competition in the workplace. We find that social identity has a significant impact on competition: a weaver only competes against coworkers with a different social identity, but not against those sharing her own identity. The results are mainly driven by urban weavers competing aggressively against rural coworkers. Our results highlight the important role of social identity in mitigating or enhancing competition.",

keywords = "Social identity, Coworker effect, Productivity, Relative performance incentive, Intergroup competition, Social identity, Coworker effect, Productivity, Relative performance incentive, Intergroup competition",

author = "Takao Kato and Pian Shu",

year = "2016",

month = nov,

doi = "10.1016/j.jebo.2016.07.014",

language = "English",

volume = "131",

pages = "37--50",

journal = "Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization",

issn = "0167-2681",

publisher = "Elsevier",

number = "Part A",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Competition and Social Identity in the Workplace

T2 - Evidence from a Chinese Textile Firm

AU - Kato, Takao

AU - Shu, Pian

PY - 2016/11

Y1 - 2016/11

N2 - We study the impact of social identity on worker competition by exploiting the well-documented social divide between urban resident workers and rural migrant workers in urban Chinese firms. We analyze data on weekly output, individual characteristics, and coworker composition for all weavers in an urban Chinese textile firm during a 53-week period. The firm adopts relative performance incentives in addition to piece rates to encourage competition in the workplace. We find that social identity has a significant impact on competition: a weaver only competes against coworkers with a different social identity, but not against those sharing her own identity. The results are mainly driven by urban weavers competing aggressively against rural coworkers. Our results highlight the important role of social identity in mitigating or enhancing competition.

AB - We study the impact of social identity on worker competition by exploiting the well-documented social divide between urban resident workers and rural migrant workers in urban Chinese firms. We analyze data on weekly output, individual characteristics, and coworker composition for all weavers in an urban Chinese textile firm during a 53-week period. The firm adopts relative performance incentives in addition to piece rates to encourage competition in the workplace. We find that social identity has a significant impact on competition: a weaver only competes against coworkers with a different social identity, but not against those sharing her own identity. The results are mainly driven by urban weavers competing aggressively against rural coworkers. Our results highlight the important role of social identity in mitigating or enhancing competition.

KW - Social identity

KW - Coworker effect

KW - Productivity

KW - Relative performance incentive

KW - Intergroup competition

KW - Social identity

KW - Coworker effect

KW - Productivity

KW - Relative performance incentive

KW - Intergroup competition

UR - https://sfx-45cbs.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/45cbs?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_ctx_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info:sid/sfxit.com:azlist&sfx.ignore_date_threshold=1&rft.object_id=954921375709&rft.object_portfolio_id=&svc.holdings=yes&svc.fulltext=yes

U2 - 10.1016/j.jebo.2016.07.014

DO - 10.1016/j.jebo.2016.07.014

M3 - Journal article

VL - 131

SP - 37

EP - 50

JO - Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

JF - Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

SN - 0167-2681

IS - Part A

ER -