Halle Institute for Economic Research
Energy Price Shock Dampens Recovery – Inflation Rises Although the leading economic research institutes, in their joint spring forecast, consider the German economy to be in a…
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Centre for Business and Productivity Dynamics
Centre for Business and Productivity Dynamics (IWH-CBPD) The Centre for Business and Productivity Dynamics (CBPD) was founded in January 2025 and works with policy and research…
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Organisation of Research
Tasks of the IWH Guided by its mission statement , the IWH places the understanding of the determinants of long term growth processes at the centre of the research agenda. Long…
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Advisory Board
Advisory Board The CompNet Advisory Board is composed of distinguished scholars and leading experts in the fields of productivity, competitiveness, and economic policy, and also…
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Past Events
Past Events 14. CompNet Annual Conference (Vilnius, 25-26 September 2025) The 14th CompNet Annual Conference, co-hosted with the Bank of Lithuania, took place on 25–26 September…
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1st CompNet Data User Conference
1st CompNet Data User Conference Since it is well established among researchers of productivity and competitiveness that macro data cannot answer all questions emerging in today's…
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Mission
The Halle Spirit We provide independent research on economic topics that really matter and aim to enrich society with facts and evidence-based insights that facilitate better…
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Guiding Theme and Research Profile
Tasks of the IWH Guided by its mission statement , the IWH places the understanding of the determinants of long term growth processes at the centre of the research agenda. Long…
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Population and labour market
Population and labour market Inhabitants are all people (Germans and foreigners) with permanent residence in federal territory (or in a Land). That does not include members of…
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Mission, Motivation, and the Active Decision to Work for a Social Cause
Sabrina Jeworrek, Vanessa Mertins
Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly,
Vol. 51 (2),
2022
Abstract
The mission of a job affects the type of worker attracted to an organization but may also provide incentives to an existing workforce. We conducted a natural field experiment with 246 short-term workers. We randomly allocated some of these workers to either a prosocial or a commercial job. Our data suggest that the mission of a job has a performance-enhancing motivational impact on particular individuals only, those with a prosocial attitude. However, the mission is very important if it has been actively selected. Those workers who have chosen to contribute to a social cause outperform the ones randomly assigned to the same job by about half a standard deviation. This effect seems to be a universal phenomenon that is not driven by information about the alternative job, the choice itself, or a particular subgroup.
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