ABSTRACT
In the 1900–1920s, organizations became more and more interested in ways to improve worker productivity. The ideas promoted by Frederick Taylor and his disciplines caught on, both nationally and internationally, and companies were frantically seeking for ways to increase their output, competitiveness and, ultimately, their profitability. The idea that workers will work harder and be more productive if they are motivated with proper incentives goes a long way back. According to Frederick Taylor, one of the most important steps to be taken in raising worker productivity was the introduction of a piece-rate system, in which workers would receive a progressively higher rate of pay with increasing output. Overall, there can be little doubt that current evidence supports the idea that providing workers with financial incentives increases their productivity. The evidence on these emotional cycles is even more remarkable when taking into account that all participants in these experiments were male.
