ABSTRACT
Wage systems – especially payment by output and payment by performance – have traditionally been described as management tools aimed at increasing workers’ productivity by motivating them to work harder and quicker. However a sociological analysis of the functioning of these wage incentives in different European countries shows that these systems are, much more than a management tool, a social bargaining tool, playing an important role in the emerging industrial relations system linked to the development of new sociotechnical conditions of work and production.
