Managerial Recognition as an Incentive for Innovation Platform Engagement: A Field Experiment and Interview Study at NASA

Abstract

Incentivizing employees to engage with novel innovation mechanisms and contribute to collective problem-solving can be difficult. We run a field experiment with NASA (N=11,192) to study two widely used classes of non-financial incentives: recognition (of managers, peers, online platform participants), and the prospect of advancing the organizational mission. Our analysis shows that managerial recognition has a significant positive effect on employees’ engagement with the problem-solving platform. The other incentives are not found to be effective. A follow-up interview study suggests that (1) managerial recognition works through signaling the platform’s legitimacy in a context of uncertainty, as well as through offering managerial attention and appreciation; (2) recognition interacts with employees’ job proximity to the organization’s mission and can be particularly motivating for employees with distant job functions; (3) organizations where the appeal of the organizational mission is already strong may face difficulties in using the mission as an instrumental incentive.