Skin in the Game: Designing innovative incentive systems that work

Bachelor Thesis, Master Thesis or Project Study

📌 Key facts

• Mission: Explore how incentive structures could improve the perforamnce in the economic and political world. Imagine the compensation of politicians would be reduced untill enough vaccines are available - we may already be swimming in vaccines. • When: Start anytime. Applications are open! • How to apply: Send us an e-mail (at the end of this page) with your CV and a grade report and a tentative research idea (research question, data, and methods, possible outcomes with a tentative outline all in word as *.docx)

Contents

• 💡 Background
• 🦾Who We Are
• 🎯 Goals
• 🧠 Topics of Interest
• 🎓 Profile
• 📚 Further Reading
• 📄 Requirements to any Work
• 📬 How to Apply

💡 Background

"Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.” — Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway

This quote by Charlie Munger shows the importance of of proper incentives. Another person who understod the significance of the topic is Nassim Taleb. In his famous book "Skin in the game" he presents solutions to overcome negative incentives:

It is decisive that there exists no assymetry regarding benefits and risks. To achieve social justice you should focus on symmety and risk sharing. An example for upside gain but no or limited downside risk was apparent before the financial crisis. Bankers where profitting financially from taking risks, but did not get penalties when the banks had to be rescued by U.S. taxpayers.

The aim of this study is to avoid such events in the future and boost performance by developing new incentive structures.

🦾Who We Are

The Chair for Strategy and Organization is focused on research with impact. This means we do not want to repeat old ideas and base our research solely on the research people did 10 years ago. Instead, we currently research topics that will shape the future. Topics such as Agile Organizations and Digital Disruption, Blockchain Technology, Creativity and Innovation, Digital Transformation and Business Model Innovation, Diversity, Education: Education Technology and Performance Management, HRTech, Leadership, and Teams. We are always early in noticing trends, technologies, strategies, and organizations that shape the future, which has its ups and downs.

🎯 Goals

• Research current incentive structures in the economy and politics
• Determine false incentives and asymmetries
• Develop and evaluate new incentive strucures
• Formulate recommendations for their implementation

🧠 Topics of Interest

• Interest in incentives: The hidden forces that shape behavior
• Strategic management and organizational planning
• Structures of corporations
• Looking at the big picture

🎓 Profile

• Reliable and self-driven
• Enthusiasm for strategic management / leadership / economic connections / politics
• Ability to do sophisticated internet, desk research, and connect with practitioners
• Passion to learn more about the future and do research with impact

📚 Further Reading

4 Ways Employee Incentives Can Drive Engagement and Retention

Get a glimpse of how to overcome the mental and physical fatigue that is standing between you and your full potential. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. No matter the industry or the size of a business, happy and engaged employees are a huge asset.

www.entrepreneur.com

The Wells Fargo Lesson? You Need Smart Incentives to Motivate Your Team.

5 min read Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. It's clear that strong incentive programs are important to the success of any employee team, sales or otherwise. Research shows that: Incentive programs improve performance by an average of 22 percent.

www.entrepreneur.com

Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb review - how risk should be shared

Skin in the Game is Nassim Nicholas Taleb's fifth book. He presents it sometimes as part of a triptych with his earlier works The Black Swan and Antifragile , and at other times as a continuation, each book "just as Eve came out of Adam's ribs", seeding the central idea of the next.

www.theguardian.com

Do Incentives Matter? It May Depend On Your Politics

Politicians and political advocates seem to suffer from a certain inconsistency on the topic of whether economic incentives can impact behavior. Most of the inconsistency is displayed by liberals, but conservatives are occasionally guilty, as well. Miraculously, they all seem to believe in incentives when the proposed incentive fits their political agenda.

www.forbes.com

Show me the incentive, I'll show you the outcome

"Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome". Charlie Munger's quip is typically insightful and relevant to many of the ructions currently facing the domestic economy and a number of the key sectors within it. Structuring incentives which engender desirable behaviour is often more complex than it appears, whilst misguided incentives almost always have unintended consequences.

www.schroders.com

📄 Requirements to any Work

We do not want your research to gather dust in some corner of bookshelf but make it accessible to the world. Thus, we warmly encourage you to create some or all of the following:

• Infograph - visually represent some of your work (find examples here)
• Slide Deck - summarize your research and possibly present it
• Extract most important sequences from podcasts, videos, and other media
• 3-4 Tweets about the most important findings and summarizing the topic
• optional: Medium Article - let people outside the university know about your research and start your personal brand

📬 How to Apply

If you are interested, please contact Prof. Dr. Isabell Welpe (e-mail below) by submitting your CV and grade report. Please also briefly outline your tentative research idea (research question, data and methods, possible outcomes with a tentative outline all in word as *.docx)

We're greatly looking forward to hearing more about you!

👉 welpe@tum.de