Incentives for Prosocial Behavior: The Role of Reputations

Christine Exley
Corresponding Author
Christine Exley
[email protected]
Harvard Business School, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts 02163
Search for more papers by this author

Christine Exley

Corresponding Author

Christine Exley

[email protected]

Harvard Business School, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts 02163

Search for more papers by this author

Published Online:24 Mar 2017https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2685

Supplemental Material

mnsc.2016.2685-sm-data.zip (18 KB)

Cited by
- Using Social Recognition to Address the Gender Difference in Volunteering for Low-Promotability Tasks
  Ritwik Banerjee,
  Priyoma Mustafi
  3 September 2025 | Management Science, Vol. 72, No. 5
- Social image in context: The role of social norms and social networks
  Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Vol. 245
- Social Image and Incentive Mechanisms for Climate Adaptation: A Review
  26 April 2026 | Management and Labour Studies, Vol. 51, No. 2
- The Market Consequences of Perceived Strategic Generosity: An Empirical Examination of NFT Charity Fundraisers
  Chen Liang,
  Murat Tunç,
  Gordon Burtch
  21 April 2026 | Information Systems Research, Vol. 0, No. 0
- Do Monetary Gifts Influence User Engagement on Social Media? An Empirical Study About Red Packets on the WeChat Interest-Based Groups
  15 July 2025 | International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, Vol. 42, No. 3
- Forecasted vs. Actual Generosity in Image-Concern Interventions
  Minah H. Jung,
  Silvia Saccardo,
  Ayelet Gneezy,
  Leif D. Nelson
  30 December 2025 | Management Science, Vol. 0, No. 0
- Moral wiggle room in the dictator game
  Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, Vol. 119
- Cultivating Care Through Nature: A Meta-Analysis of Nature Connectedness and Prosociality
  26 November 2025 | Sustainability, Vol. 17, No. 23
- Warmth Centrality in Social Cognitive Networks of Fairness Reputation Across Players in the Ultimatum and Dictator Games
  11 November 2025 | Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 15, No. 11
- A Typology of Psychological Mechanisms Underlying Prosocial Decisions
  11 October 2024 | Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Vol. 54, No. 4
- Volunteering behavior of college students in private colleges based on MOA theory: Taking Guangzhou Huashang college as an example
  1 August 2025 | Journal of Computational Methods in Sciences and Engineering
- Hold Me Accountable: Anonymity and Prosocial Behavior in Services
  Rob Glew,
  Claire Senot
  14 May 2025 | Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Vol. 27, No. 4
- Social image, observer identity, and crowding up
  Games and Economic Behavior, Vol. 152
- Mission Motivation and Public Sector Performance: Experimental Evidence from Pakistan
  American Economic Review, Vol. 115, No. 7
- Paying for individual performance and job satisfaction: the role of self-concern and other-orientation
  6 December 2024 | Management Decision, Vol. 63, No. 7
- The impact factor: The effect of actual impact information and perceived donation efficacy on donors' repeated donations
  Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 118
- Promoting Charitable Donations and Volunteering Through Nudge Tools From the Perspective of Behavioral Economics: A Systematic Review
  20 June 2024 | Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Vol. 54, No. 2
- Can Incentives Ensure the Social Sustainability of Blood Donation? Insights from a Romanian Higher Education Institution
  17 April 2025 | Sustainability, Vol. 17, No. 8
- Believed Gender Differences in Social Preferences
  17 December 2024 | The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 140, No. 1
- Optimal referral rewards for poverty-alleviating products based on the structural equation interpretation
  2 November 2023 | Kybernetes, Vol. 54, No. 1
- Gender differences in the self-promotion of prosocial behaviour: exploring the female modesty constraint
  28 April 2025 | Experimental Economics, Vol. 28, No. 1
- Using social recognition to address the gender difference in volunteering for low-promotability tasks
  1 January 2025 | SSRN Electronic Journal, Vol. 3
- Review of behavioral economics models of the altruistic crowding‐out effect from monetary incentives
  27 December 2023 | Journal of Economic Surveys, Vol. 38, No. 5
- Exploring the impact of tenure arrangements and incentives on sustainable forest use: Evidence from a framed-field experiment in Ethiopia
  Forest Policy and Economics, Vol. 166
- How do tangible and intangible rewards encourage employee voice? The perspective of dual proactive motivational pathways
  16 May 2024 | The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 35, No. 15
- Do mturkers collude in interactive online experiments?
  1 September 2023 | Behavior Research Methods, Vol. 56, No. 5
- Multi-stage incentive contract design of aviation complex product multi-task delivery strategy
  Computers & Industrial Engineering, Vol. 193
- Short- and long-term effects of incentives on prosocial behavior: The case of ride vouchers to a blood collection agency
  Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 352
- Informal Payments and Doctor Engagement in an Online Health Community: An Empirical Investigation Using Generalized Synthetic Control
  Qili Wang,
  Liangfei Qiu,
  Wei Xu
  1 June 2023 | Information Systems Research, Vol. 35, No. 2
- Goal-gradient point rewards can increase consumers' willingness to purchase poverty-alleviating products
  Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Vol. 92
- The Interactive Effect of Incentive Salience and Prosocial Motivation on Prosocial Behavior
  13 March 2024 | Psychological Science, Vol. 35, No. 4
- Performance contests and merit pay with empathic employees
  20 September 2023 | Managerial and Decision Economics, Vol. 45, No. 1
- Market Responses to Genuine Versus Strategic Generosity: An Empirical Examination of NFT Charity Fundraisers
  1 January 2024 | SSRN Electronic Journal, Vol. 59
- Informal Payments and Doctor Engagement in an Online Health Community: An Empirical Investigation Using Generalized Synthetic Control
  1 June 2023 | Information Systems Research, Vol. 44
- Aid utility theory: A new way of thinking about and tackling aid utilization neglect
  Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 43
- Make it Personal: Standardization and Prosocial Behavior
  1 January 2023 | SSRN Electronic Journal, Vol. 113
- Reminders Undermine Impressions of Genuine Gratitude
  1 January 2023 | SSRN Electronic Journal, Vol. 119
- Social Image, Observer Identity, and Crowding Up
  1 January 2023 | SSRN Electronic Journal, Vol. 109
- The bright and dark sides of egoism
  24 November 2022 | Frontiers in Psychiatry, Vol. 13
- Understanding Rumor Combating Behavior on Social Media
  19 November 2021 | Journal of Computer Information Systems, Vol. 62, No. 6
- Beyond Productivity: Incentive Effects on Alternative Outcomes
- Financial incentives facilitate stronger neural computation of prosocial decisions in lower empathic adult females
  5 September 2022 | Social Neuroscience, Vol. 17, No. 5
- Gym Membership Programs: Image Motivation and Conditional Discount Framing
  2 December 2021 | Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, Vol. 43, No. 3
- Institutional Disruptions and the Philanthropy of Multinational Firms
  Luis Ballesteros,
  Catherine Magelssen
  27 September 2021 | Organization Science, Vol. 33, No. 4
- REFERENCES
  20 May 2025
- Effects of Social Connectedness on the Sharing of Employee-Created Content
  1 March 2022 | Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 13
- Compassion, Discrimination, and Prosocial Behaviors: Young Diasporic Chinese During the COVID-19 Pandemic
  17 February 2022 | Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 13
- Measuring the Welfare Effects of Shame and Pride
  American Economic Review, Vol. 112, No. 1
- Spillovers in the Charitable Market: Evidence from Reputation Shocks
  SSRN Electronic Journal, Vol. 172
- Investigating stewardship behavior in megaprojects: An exploratory analysis
  22 December 2020 | Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 28, No. 9
- How Do Nascent Social Entrepreneurs Respond to Rewards? A Field Experiment on Motivations in a Grant Competition
  Ina Ganguli,
  Marieke Huysentruyt,
  Chloé Le Coq
  15 February 2021 | Management Science, Vol. 67, No. 10
- The Pledging Puzzle: How Can Revocable Promises Increase Charitable Giving?
  James Andreoni,
  Marta Serra-Garcia
  19 March 2021 | Management Science, Vol. 67, No. 10
- Too Lonely to Help: Early Adolescents’ Social Connections and Willingness to Help During COVID‐19 Lockdown
  26 August 2021 | Journal of Research on Adolescence, Vol. 31, No. 3
- The Adverse Effect of Choice in Donation Decisions
  29 April 2021 | Journal of Consumer Psychology, Vol. 31, No. 3
- A Note on Data-driven Actor-differentiation and SDGs 2 and 12: Insights from a Food-sharing App
  Research Policy, Vol. 50, No. 6
- Machiavelli Preferences Without Blame: Delegating Selfish vs. Generous Decisions in Dictator Games
  Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, Vol. 90
- Incentivizing Data Donations and the Adoption of COVID-19 Contact-Tracing Apps: A Randomized Controlled Online Experiment on the German Corona-Warn-App
  SSRN Electronic Journal, Vol. 8
- Institutional Disruptions and the Philanthropy of Multinational Firms
  SSRN Electronic Journal, Vol. 1
- Promoting Physical Activity Through Prosocial Incentives on Mobile Platforms
  SSRN Electronic Journal, Vol. 17
- For Your Eyes Only: A Field Experiment on Nudging Hygienic Behavior
  4 December 2020 | Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 11
- The impact of expressing willingness to cooperate on cooperation in public goods game
  Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Vol. 140
- Environmentally Sustainable Food Consumption: A Review and Research Agenda From a Goal-Directed Perspective
  10 July 2020 | Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 11
- Principles versus principal: Reconciling norm compliance and shareholder value
  4 August 2019 | Journal of Public Economic Theory, Vol. 22, No. 2
- Wage Policies, Incentive Schemes, and Motivation
  9 April 2020
- Helping relief campaigns: Social cognitive factors underlying important issues using structural equation modelling
  23 September 2020 | Cogent Business & Management, Vol. 7, No. 1
- Working from Home Under Social Isolation: Online Content Contributions During the Coronavirus Shock
  SSRN Electronic Journal, Vol. 62
- Trading Privacy for the Greater Social Good: How Did America React During COVID-19?
  SSRN Electronic Journal, Vol. 49
- Norm Uncertainty and Voluntary Payments in the Field
  Christoph Feldhaus,
  Tassilo Sobotta,
  Peter Werner
  6 April 2018 | Management Science, Vol. 65, No. 4
- The relative value of firm and nonprofit experience: Tackling large‐scale social issues across institutional contexts
  30 November 2018 | Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 40, No. 4
- Behavioral barriers and the energy efficiency gap: a survey of the literature
  1 November 2018 | Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Vol. 46, No. 1
- Wage Elasticities in Working and Volunteering: The Role of Reference Points in a Laboratory Study
  Christine L. Exley,
  Stephen J. Terry
  29 November 2017 | Management Science, Vol. 65, No. 1
- The Impact of Monetary Incentives on Physician Prosocial Behavior in Online Medical Consulting Platforms: Evidence From China
  26 July 2019 | Journal of Medical Internet Research, Vol. 21, No. 7
- Gender differences in giving in the Dictator Game: the role of reluctant altruism
  17 January 2025 | Journal of the Economic Science Association, Vol. 4, No. 2
- How does fundraising affect volunteering? Evidence from a natural field experiment
  Journal of Economic Psychology, Vol. 64
- The impact of a surprise donation ask
  Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 158
- Getting the Rich and Powerful to Give
  SSRN Electronic Journal, Vol. 83
- Finding Excuses to Decline the Ask
  SSRN Electronic Journal, Vol. 77

Volume 64, Issue 5

May 2018

Pages 1975-2471

Article Information

Supplemental Material

Metrics

Information

Received:June 18, 2014
Accepted:September 04, 2016
Published Online:March 24, 2017

Cite as

Christine Exley (2017) Incentives for Prosocial Behavior: The Role of Reputations. Management Science 64(5):2460-2471.

https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2685

Keywords

PDF download

Available Issues

Available Issues

Available Issues

Available Issues

Available Issues

Available Issues

Available Issues

Available Issues

Available Issues

Incentives for Prosocial Behavior: The Role of Reputations

Supplemental Material

Volume 64, Issue 5

Article Information

Supplemental Material

Metrics

Information

Cite as

Keywords

Sign Up for INFORMS Publications Updates and News