When using group-based commission plans to motivate their sales force, should firms always compensate salespeople based on the average of team members’ sales outcomes? The theory suggests that when team members are heterogeneous in sales abilities, the proposed Maximum contract (where the team output is set by the largest individual sales output) dominates the Average contract (where the team output is determined by the average output of team members) in terms of overall team effort. This is because the stronger team member will exert higher effort under the maximum contract, compared to the average contract, and this increase exceeds the decrease in the weaker team member’s effort. The authors validate the theoretical predictions by employing two laboratory experiments to provide a causal test of the theory, and two randomized field experiments to deliver additional corroborating evidence. The experimental results are overall consistent and broadly confirm the theoretical predictions, pointing to the substantial gains from implementing the maximum contract when team members are heterogeneous in abilities. Interestingly, the weaker team members exert similar effort across the maximum and average contracts, although the theory predicts higher effort under the latter.

当使用基于小组的佣金计划来激励他们的销售队伍时，公司是否应该始终根据团队成员的销售结果的平均值来补偿销售人员？该理论表明，当团队成员的销售能力不同时，建议的最大合同（团队产出由最大的个人销售产出确定）将主导平均合同（团队产出由团队成员的平均产出决定）就团队整体工作而言。这是因为与平均合同相比，较强的团队成员在最大合同下将付出更大的努力，而这种增加超过了较弱的团队成员所付出的努力的减少。作者通过采用两个实验室实验对理论进行了因果检验，从而验证了理论预测，和两个随机的野外实验，以提供更多的确凿证据。实验结果总体上是一致的，并广泛证实了理论预测，指出当团队成员的能力异质时，通过实施最大合同所获得的实质性收益。有趣的是，较弱的团队成员在最大合同和平均合同上也施加了相似的努力，尽管该理论预测在后者的情况下会付出更高的努力。