Transformations  in
Business & Economics

A BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS ANALYSIS AND ENHANCEMENT OF WORK INCENTIVES FOR COLLEGE COUNSELORS⁶
Xiaolei Wang, Ruiyu He, Zhongjin Tian, Yibing Zhang

ABSTRACT: Counselors are the principal subjects of college student management in colleges, and their work performance directly influences the quality of college student cultivation. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance effective incentives for counselors’ work. The study applies the behavioral economics theory to analyze counselors’ decision-making and strategic interaction, reveal the problems faced in motivating counselors’ work, and propose several incentive countermeasures. The research shows that traditional standard economics fails to reveal counselors’ work decisions comprehensively and precisely, and there are also certain defects in incentive design. In addition, the endowment effect, dynamic inconsistency of time preference, fairness preference, and reciprocity preference all exist in counselors’ work decision-making and have various impacts. Therefore, incentive countermeasures should be formulated accordingly. These conclusions have policy implications for the design of incentive mechanisms for college counselors.

KEYWORDS:  behavioural economics, work incentives, college counsellors, standard economics.

JEL classification:  A29, M54, C79.

⁶Acknowledgments:  The research is supported by the The Ministry of Education of Humanities and Social Science Project of China (Grant number: 21JDSZ3028).