Affiliation:
1. Institute for Organization and Human Resource Management University of Bern Bern Switzerland
2. Faculty of Economics and Business Goethe University Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main Germany
3. Simon‐Kucher & Partners Frankfurt am Main Germany
Abstract
AbstractWe use an incentivized experimental game to uncover heterogeneity in social preferences among salespeople in a large Austrian retail chain. Our results show that the majority of agents take the welfare of others into account but a significant fraction reveal selfish behavior. Matching individual behavior in the game with firm data on sales performance shows that agents with social preferences achieve a significantly higher revenue per customer. However, at the same time, they achieve fewer sales per day. Both effects offset each other, so that the overall association with total sales revenue becomes insignificant. Our findings highlight the nuanced role of selfish versus social preferences in sales contexts with important implications for economic research.
Subject
Management of Technology and Innovation,Strategy and Management,Economics and Econometrics,General Business, Management and Accounting,Colloid and Surface Chemistry,Physical and Theoretical Chemistry