Study Links Corporate Giving to Increased Staff Productivity

Workers boost their productivity by up to 30 percent when given a job-related philanthropic incentive, according to new research by the University of Southampton in England. The study, to be published in the journal Management Science, measured test subjects’ performance in assigned work when offered both financial stimuli like bonuses and social incentives, like an opportunity to direct a portion of their pay to charity.

Productivity increased by an average of 13 percent when workers were given a philanthropic motivation and by 30 percent among subjects who were initially the least productive. “Our results indicate that social incentives may be slightly less effective than financial incentives in motivating workers, but the difference is not as large as one might have expected,” said Michael Vlassopoulos, a co-author of the report.