When Pay Ruins Everything

This post talks about 'money markets' and 'social markets', making the point that tying pay for specific work can actually lower motivation in some people (for example - if someone paid me specifically to publish OLDaily, I wouldn't feel the same attachment to it that I do). It suggests a work environment in which "you would be paid for being there, for being you, and your task load would be determined by the interplay of personal, interpersonal and team commitments. You would also have a context within with to distinguish yourself by the quality or quantity of your output." I think, in addition to economic markets and social markets there are also personal markets - the things you do to satisfy your own feeling that there are some things that simply need doing. Neil LaChapelle, EDUCAUSE Connect, June 29, 2007 2:57 p.m.. [Link] [Tags: , ] [Previous][Next]

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Re: When Pay Ruins Everything

Anymouse, August 7, 2008 8:32 a.m.

Hi Stephen

I think that the "market" concept itself is pretty social in nature. I'm not sure that it applies to personal time and energy expenditures. I am certainly not denying that we do some things for their intrinsic motivational value though! But the value of the "market" concept is in the way it foregrounds exchanges *between* people as a key feature of what it describes.

I think if you wanted to use an economic metaphor for the personal case, the concept of a "budget" may apply. We are willing to budget time, effort and resources for things that have intrinsic value for us even if these costs are not compensated by extrinsic gain of any kind. Some of us are more willing to do this than others, of course. Some of us strongly prefer to spend our energies on things that have high intrinsic value and no immediate extrinsic value, and we resent the various necessities of work which force us to do the opposite sorts of tasks - ones with low intrinsic value for us, but high extrinsic value in social or economic exchanges.

I do agree with you that this opens up a new space, however. It makes room for people who work on things "just because" - not as part of either social or economic exchange. This kind of motivation is very important for our personal time/energy budgeting, but in terms of exchange value it represents cost instead of gain. Or perhaps we may hope for some kind of vague, future social good to come out of it all - without worrying too much in the present about what form that future benefit will take. In that case our short-term costs dovetail with some long-term, uncertain social market potential, but that need not be what really motivates us to do them.

Thanks for picking up the thread! I don't belong to an Educause member organization anymore, and I stumbled across this quite by accident. It feels good to carry on the conversation.

- Neil LaChapelle [Comment] [Permalink] [Previous][Next]

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