Did former gym teacher Bernard Ebbers need the $408 million he borrowed from WorldCom to improve his performance as chief executive officer of the telecom company? Did the $242 million in houses, art, and tchotskes make Dennis Koslowski work harder for the shareholders of Tyco? How did the board of the New York Stock Exchange figure out that it had overpaid former Chairman Dick Grasso by $144 million to $156 million – rather than, say, $50 million or $200 million?

For that matter, would Reuben Mark, chief executive officer of Colgate-Palmolive, and the country’s highest-paid boss, have been less motivated if he had been paid $100 million rather than the $147 million he made in 2003?

These questions came to mind when reading an article in the Wall Street Journal last week about Domino’s Pizza. It turns out that the secret to motivating Domino’s workforce was not a bigger slice of the pie, but better relationships on the job.

When Domino’s chief executive officer, David A. Brandon, found out that turnover was 158% – and cost the company some $2,500 each time an hourly worker quit – he flipped out.

After a bit of research, Mr. Brandon figured that the quality of the store manager was the greatest factor in determining the success of an individual store. Instead of increasing wages to keep workers, he launched a company-wide quest to coach managers to create better karma in the workplace. That was five years ago. Today turnover is down to 107%.

This would come as no surprise to many compensation theorists. C. Douglas Jenkins, who studied pay and motivation, wrote almost two decades ago, “Financial incentives do not improve performance quality.” Alfie Kohn, a writer on human behavior and education, notes in a human resource trade journal that “At least 70 studies have found that rewards tend to undermine interest in the task; this is one of the most thoroughly replicated findings in the field of social psychology.”

According to Mr. Kohn, people rank money well behind good people to work with and interesting work as motivating factors in the workplace.

Maybe it began with Eve. According to Sally Helgesen, author of “The Female Advantage,” a groundbreaking study of women leaders published by Currency Doubleday in 1990, “Most successful women give priority to developing and maintaining close relationships. They take the time they need to invest in colleagues and coworkers.”

Furthermore adds Ms. Helgesen, who is currently researching a book about women, work, and happiness, “Financial success and status do not automatically translate into happiness.”

It is true that in recent snaps of Mr. Ebbers and Mr. Koslowski outside various courthouses, they do not look like happy campers. Even the genial Mr. Grasso has turned a tad churlish of late.

The new field dubbed “happiness research” – a marriage between the disciplines of economics and psychology – may have the answer to current executive grumpiness. Most happiness studies point to the following: Money does not buy happiness, on the job or off.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Brookings Institution held a symposium on this very topic. The featured speaker was Richard Layard, director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, a member of the House of Lords, and one of Britain’s most prominent economists. He is also the author of a new book “Happiness: Lessons from a New Science.”

Lord Layard, clearly no slouch, advocates for more emphasis on how communities function and less on simply getting ahead economically. According to his work, people in the developed economies have gotten unhappier over the past 50 years – even as the economies boomed.

Lord Layard notes, “There is a distortion that our culture has got us into. People feel it’s almost their chief moral responsibility to make the most of themselves and to kind of get the most out of life, rather than to contribute as much as possible to the happiness of other people – and their own happiness.”

It refreshing that Lord Layard and his happiness colleagues are trying to lighten up the dismal science. But let’s give Claire Booth Luce the last laugh: “Money can’t buy happiness but it can make you awfully comfortable while you are being miserable.”

Ms. Bailey is a writer and family therapist. E-mail: ebailey@nysun.com.