How does performance feedback shape public managers’ inclination to involve frontline professionals? Evidence from a conjoint experiment

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Research suggests that public managers sometimes struggle to make sense of and use performance feedback in decision making and that, importantly, involving frontline professionals could help with such evidence-based decision making. Therefore, this study investigates how different elements of performance feedback shape public managers’ inclination to involve frontline professionals by employing a conjoint experiment with 1,252 observations from 223 publicly employed clinical directors. The findings reveal the following. First, clinical directors are more inclined to involve frontline professionals when the feedback indicates a failure to reach organizational goals compared with reaching or exceeding organizational goals. Second, clinical directors are more inclined to involve frontline professionals when the feedback is tied to social, rather than historical, aspirations. Third, clinical directors are more inclined to involve frontline professionals in understanding the performance feedback, when the feedback relates to an output or outcome goal rather than an input goal. Implications for public management theory and practice are discussed.