Abstract

This chapter investigates how knowledge-intensive small-medium enterprises (KI-SMEs) manage their human resource, to understand if non-monetary reward practices prevail, wishing to verify whether they are effective in spurring organizational performance or risk being a ‘dangerous’ fad. To support our reasoning, we provide evidence from a survey conducted on a sample of 95 SMEs in different industries in Italy. The results show a larger use of non-monetary incentives for firms with higher levels of knowledge intensity, compared to non-knowledge-intensive ones; further, results demonstrate that the overuse of non-monetary rewards may produce adverse effects.