Power of Bonus in Pricing for Crowdsourcing

We consider a simple form of pricing for a crowdsourcing system, where pricing policy is published a priori, and workers then decide their task acceptance. Such a pricing form is widely adopted in practice for its simplicity, e.g., Amazon Mechanical Turk, although additional sophistication to pricing rule can enhance budget efficiency. With the goal of designing efficient and simple pricing rules, we study the impact of the following two design features in pricing policies: (i) personalization tailoring policy worker-by-worker and (ii) bonus payment to qualified task completion. In the Bayesian setting, where the only prior distribution of workers' profiles is available, we first study the Price of Agnosticism (PoA) that quantifies the utility gap between personalized and common pricing policies. We show that PoA is bounded within a constant factor under some mild conditions, and the impact of bonus is essential in common pricing. These analytic results imply that complex personalized pricing can be replaced by simple common pricing once it is equipped with a proper bonus payment. To provide insights on efficient common pricing, we then study the efficient mechanisms of bonus payment for several profile distribution regimes which may exist in practice. We provide primitive experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk, which support our analytical findings.

Implementation Fidelity In A Multifaceted Program To Foster Rational Antibiotics Use In Primary Care: An Observational Study

BackgroundThe ARena study (Sustainable Reduction of Antimicrobial Resistance in German Ambulatory Care) is a three-arm, cluster randomized trial to evaluate a multifaceted implementation program in a German primary care setting. In the context of a prospective process evaluation conducted alongside ARena, this study aimed to document and explore fidelity of the implementation program.MethodsThis observational study is based on data generated in a three-wave survey of 312 participating physicians in the ARena program and attendance documentation. Measures concerned persistence of participation in the ARena program and adherence to intervention components (thematic quality circles, e-learning, basic expenditure reimbursements, additional bonus payments and a computerized decision support system). Participants’ views on five domains of the implementation were also measured. Binary logistic and linear regression analyses were used to explore which views on the implementation were associated with participants’ adherence to quality circles and use of additional bonus compensation. ResultsThe analysis of fidelity showed overall high persistence of participation in the intervention components across the three intervention arms (90,1%; 97,9%; 92,9%). 96.4% of planned quality circles were delivered to study participants and, across waves, 30.4% to 93% of practices participated; 56.1% of physicians attended the maximum of four quality circles. 84% of the practices (n=158) with a minimum of one index patient received a performance-based additional bonus payment at least once. In total, bonus compensation was triggered for 51.8% of affected patients. Participation rate for e-learning (a prerequisite for reimbursement of project-related expenditure) covered 90.8% of practices across all intervention arms, with the highest rate in arm II (96.5%). Uptake of expenditure reimbursement was heterogeneous across study arms, with a mean rate of 86.5% (89.1% in arm I, 96.4% in arm II and 74.1% in arm III). Participants’ views regarding participant responsiveness (OR = 2.298) 95% CI [1.598, 3.305] and Context (OR = 2.146) 95% CI [1.135, 4.055] affected additional bonus payment. Participants’ views on participant responsiveness (Beta = 0.718) 95% CI [0.479, 0.957], Context (Beta = 0.323) 95% CI [0.055, 0.590] and Culture of shared decision-making (Beta = -0.334) 95% CI [-0.614, -0.053] affected quality circle attendance.ConclusionThis study showed an overall high fidelity to the implementation program. Participants’ views on the implementation were associated with degree of intervention fidelity. Trial registration: ISRCTN, ISRCTN58150046

A study on employee perception on motivational methods with special reference to small and medium scale start-ups at malumachampatti, coimbatore

Motivation is the key factor that drives the employees to work to the fullest, thereby contributing to the success of the organization. This research paper aims at observing the perception of the employees at Small and Medium Scale Startups in Malumachampatti, Coimbatore on the motivation methods already in place at their organization. Most of the organizations have both monetary and non-monetary forms of motivational techniques. Yet, studying the views of the employees on these techniques is important in order to understand the effectiveness of them and the satisfaction level of employees. Incentives, appreciation letters and awards, bonus, payment for working overtime are few of the many motivational methods used at these companies. Motivation is an important factor that brings employee satisfaction. Every concern requires physical, financial, and human resources to accomplish the goals. It is through motivation human resources can be utilized by making full use of it. This will help the enterprise in securing best possible utilization of resources.

No effect of monetary reward in a visual working memory task

ABSTRACTPrevious work has shown that humans distribute their visual working memory (VWM) resources flexibly across items: the higher the importance of an item, the better it is remembered. A related, but much less studied question is whether people also have control over the total amount of VWM resource allocated to a task. Here, we approach this question by testing whether increasing monetary incentives results in better overall VWM performance. In two experiments, subjects performed a delayed-estimation task on the Amazon Turk platform. In both experiments, four groups of subjects received a bonus payment based on their performance, with the maximum bonus ranging from $0 to $10 between groups. We found no effect of the amount of bonus on intrinsic motivation or on VWM performance in either experiment. These results suggest that resource allocation in visual working memory is insensitive to monetary reward, which has implications for resource-rational theories of VWM.

Changes in the Executive Bonus Payment Patterns in India Between 2008 - 2016: Some Evidences

This article provides a brief overview of the trends in bonus payment to executives in India. Using data from the voluntary web based survey of Paycheck India, which is a part of WageIndicator Foundation, this article analyzes the trends in five types of bonuses, viz., performance, end-of-year, festival, profit-share and others, from 2008 to 2016, across public and private sectors and four types of industries, viz., manufacturing and construction; trade, transport and hospitality; commercial services; and public sector, health care and education. The results suggest that performance bonus is the most popular type of bonus, while profit-share is the least popular. However, from 2008 to 2016, the shares of all types of bonuses in both sectors (Public and Private) and all industries have been declining, and in most of the large industries and firms, bonuses in terms of cash payments are now restricted to fewer executives.

Year-End Tax Planning of Top Management: Evidence from High-Frequency Payroll Data

Using Danish high-frequency payroll data and tax reform variation, we detect year-end tax avoidance among top managers. Five to seven percent of top managers exploit year-end tax planning strategies to save taxes. Around 30 percent of the top managers engaging in year-end tax avoidance do so by retiming bonus payments while the rest shift regular wage income. However, bonus timing is most tax-sensitive. When considering all of the top managers receiving a December bonus, we find that more than one-quarter retime the bonus payment, whereas only 5 percent of those not receiving a bonus shift regular wage income.

Simulation of Holstein and Jersey profitability by varying milk price payment system

The objective of the study was to compare through simulation Holstein and Jersey breed herds, considering the farm size, zootechnical and economic indexes and profitability of the activity, by using different systems of bonus payment for milk price based in percentage of fat and protein in the milk. The comparisons were made, initially, disregarding the bonus payment for milk price based on the increase in the fat and protein percentage in milk. After that, the profitability of the activity was compared considering bonus payment for milk price of the Jersey breed herd, for each unit increment in fat and protein percentage in milk above those obtained with the Holstein breed herd. Finally, the profitability of the activity was compared by using the bonus payment for milk price based on quality of that used by company A systems. When there was no bonus payment for milk price based in the percentage of fat and protein in the milk, the profit obtained with the Holstein breed was higher because of the lower production costs. In order to make the activity more profitable with the Jersey breed, a bonus payment of 5% for milk price would be needed for each percentage unit of fat above the percentage of that obtained with the Holstein breed, or a bonus payment of 10% in the milk price for each percentage unit of protein above the percentage obtained with the Holstein breed. By using the bonus payment system proposed by Gimenes and Ponchio, the annual profit with the Jersey breed was higher than the profit obtained with the Holstein breed. However, with the application of the bonus payment system used by company A, the Holstein breed became more profitable than the Jersey breed.