Individual Motivation and Institutional Changes Under the Senior Executive Service

Abstract

The Senior Executive Service (SES) represents an attempt to alter the incentive structure for govern ment executives, primarily by introducing new financial incentives to motivate performance, im prove performance appraisal, and make retention, promotion, and pay truly contingent on the results of appraisals. Our findings indicate that the reform did address sources of some dissatisfaction, but that the impact of SES to date has been, if anything, to make matters worse. SESers do not perceive improvement in the areas that SES was designed to address.