Purpose

There is growing scholarly interest in the use of penalty in employment contracts which reduce employees' pay if the employee's performance does not meet a pre-specified performance threshold. Prior accounting research has focused exclusively on the effect of penalty on employee performance. In this study, the authors extend earlier research by examining how penalty affects the employers' wage offers. Prior research suggests that employers' generous wage offers in employment contracts are normally translated as trust by employees who in turn reciprocate with higher effort. The authors present a theory that predicts penalty reduces employers' wage offers. Then, the authors propose unrestricted communication between employers and employees as a potential moderator for the negative effect of penalty on trust and reciprocity.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors implement a controlled lab experiment with a 2 × 3 experimental design (Penalty: Present and Absent; and Communication: None, One-Way and Two-Way).

Findings

The authors develop their predictions by utilizing insights from motivational-crowding and organizational communication theories. The authors hypothesize and find evidence that employers' ability to penalize employees can reduce employers' motivation to offer generous wages. As a result, reduced trust demotivates employees to provide high effort. However, the authors find that a two-way communication moderates the negative effect of penalties by restoring trust, thereby, increasing reciprocity. Finally, the authors find evidence that relationship-oriented messages explain the moderating effect of communication.

Research limitations/implications

This study is subject to limitations inherent in all experimental studies. The decisions in the study experiment are less complex than those found in practice. Moreover, there are significantly higher costs and potential benefits to shirk on effort in practice. The authors encourage future research on other organizational features that would influence the generalizability of their theory and results. Nonetheless, this study makes an important contribution to the literature on trust, reciprocity, gift-exchange contracts, managerial controls and communication.

Practical implications

This paper has several important implications for theory and practice. The authors show that the presence of penalty may not automatically result in increasing employees' effort level, contrary to traditional economic theory predictions. This effect is driven mainly by the crowding out effect of a penalty on employers' desire to signal trust. Therefore, the presence of an open communication channel may become an important tool to reverse the psychological effect of reduced trust when penalty is present. Therefore, the study's findings contribute to the trust–reciprocity literature on how management control system influences employers' and employees' behavior. These findings are especially germane given the trend in the workplace toward establishing open communication at different levels within the firm hierarchy. The study also contributes to the literature on trust–reciprocity as critical informal controls and social norms in accounting practices (Bicchieri, 2006; Stevens, 2019), shedding light on how firms may influence employees' reciprocity in management control practices and induce them to act in line with the firm's objectives by opening communication channels.

Originality/value

Prior accounting research document that penalty in employment contracts increases employee performance due to loss aversion. The study, however, demonstrates that the positive effect of penalty is not sustained in a gift-exchange contract. Specifically, the study's experimental results provide evidence that the availability of penalties can psychologically change the way employers perceive their decisions on offering generous wages (i.e. trust) and consequently reduce employees' reciprocation of high effort levels. Yet, the authors propose a two-way communication as a restorative mechanism for the lost trust. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

中文翻译：

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惩罚对雇主信任和雇员互惠的影响及沟通调节作用的实验研究

目的

学术界越来越关注在雇佣合同中使用惩罚措施，如果员工的绩效未达到预先指定的绩效阈值，则会减少员工的工资。先前的会计研究仅关注惩罚对员工绩效的影响。在这项研究中，作者通过研究处罚如何影响雇主的工资报价来扩展早期的研究。先前的研究表明，雇主在雇佣合同中提供的慷慨工资通常会被雇员转化为信任，而雇员反过来也会付出更大的努力来回报。作者提出了一种理论，预测惩罚会降低雇主的工资水平。然后，作者提出雇主和雇员之间不受限制的沟通可以作为惩罚对信任和互惠的负面影响的潜在调节因素。

设计/方法论/途径

作者采用 2 × 3 实验设计实施了一项受控实验室实验（惩罚：存在和缺席；沟通：无、单向和双向）。

发现

作者利用动机拥挤理论和组织沟通理论的见解来做出预测。作者假设并找到证据表明，雇主惩罚雇员的能力会降低雇主提供慷慨工资的动力。因此，信任度的降低会降低员工的积极性。然而，作者发现，双向沟通可以通过恢复信任来减轻惩罚的负面影响，从而增加互惠。最后，作者发现证据表明关系导向的信息可以解释沟通的调节作用。

研究局限性/影响

这项研究受到所有实验研究固有的局限性。研究实验中的决策没有实践中的决策复杂。此外，在实践中逃避努力会带来更高的成本和潜在的好处。作者鼓励未来对其他组织特征进行研究，这些特征会影响他们的理论和结果的普遍性。尽管如此，这项研究对信任、互惠、礼物交换合同、管理控制和沟通方面的文献做出了重要贡献。

实际影响

本文对理论和实践有几个重要的意义。作者表明，与传统经济理论的预测相反，惩罚的存在可能不会自动导致员工努力程度的增加。这种效应主要是由于惩罚对雇主表达信任的意愿产生的挤出效应造成的。因此，开放的沟通渠道的存在可能成为扭转惩罚存在时信任度降低的心理影响的重要工具。因此，该研究的结果有助于关于管理控制系统如何影响雇主和雇员行为的信任互惠文献。考虑到工作场所在公司层级内的不同级别建立开放式沟通的趋势，这些发现尤其有意义。

原创性/价值

先前的会计研究表明，由于厌恶损失，雇佣合同中的处罚会提高员工的绩效。然而，该研究表明，惩罚的积极作用在礼物交换合同中并没有得到维持。具体来说，该研究的实验结果证明，惩罚的存在可以在心理上改变雇主对提供慷慨工资（即信任）的决定的看法，从而减少雇员对高努力水平的回报。然而，作者提出了一种双向沟通作为失去信任的恢复机制。讨论了理论和实践的意义。