The Impact of Management Practices on Employee Productivity: A Field Experiment with Airline Captains

2019/07/09 by Greer K. Gosnell, Greer Gosnell, John A. List +2 · 132 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Aviation Industry Analysis and Trends #Business #Economic growth #Economics #Environmental Sustainability in Business #Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies #Incentive #Labour economics #Microeconomics #Productivity #Prosocial behavior #Psychology #Test (biology)

paper · open access · doi:10.1086/705375

published in Journal of Political Economy 128(4), 1195-1233 (University of Chicago Press)

openalex publication_date 2019/07/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Increasing evidence indicates the importance of management in determining firms' productivity. Yet causal evidence regarding the effectiveness of management practices is scarce, especially for skilled labor in the developed world. In a field experiment measuring commercial airline captains’ productivity, we test four distinct management practices: performance monitoring, performance feedback, target setting, and prosocial incentives. These practices—particularly monitoring and target setting—significantly increase captains' productivity on the targeted fuel-saving dimensions, with positive spillovers on job satisfaction and CO2 emissions. The study reveals an uncharted research opportunity to delve into the black box of firms to examine the determinants of productivity among skilled labor.

Citations

• Does Management Matter in schools?
• The Impact of Consulting Services on Small and Medium Enterprises: Evidence from a Randomized Trial in Mexico
• Individual and Corporate Social Responsibility

Cited by

• The value of leadership: Evidence from a large-scale field experiment
• Family‐Managed Businesses and the Quality of Management Practices
• Public Services Under Private Management
• Changing Human Behavior to Conserve Biodiversity
• Managing Skills in Organizations - Evidence from a Field Experiment
• Learning about Our Vices from Devices: A Model of Individual Learning with an Application to Consumer Food Waste. [europepmc]

Related

• What Determines Productivity?
• Employees and High‐Performance Work Systems: Testing inside the Black Box
• Participation at setting performance goals – A cross-sectional study on self-reported control, objective control and vital exhaustion
• Making the Invisible Hand Visible: Managers and the Allocation of Workers to Jobs
• What Matters More?