Performance Feedback Type and Employees' Subsequent Willingness to Help Other Employees

Abstract

ABSTRACTWe investigate whether the type of performance feedback (individual versus relative) firms provide employees on one task alters employees' willingness to help other employees on a subsequent, unrelated task. Consistent with prior research, results from our experiment show that employees perform better on a production task when they receive relative performance feedback as opposed to individual performance feedback about the task. However, we document that the valence of RPI feedback appears to moderate the effect of RPI on subsequent helping behavior. Specifically, those who receive RPI feedback indicating that they performed (better) worse than another participant exhibit (lower) higher levels of helping behavior relative to those who receive only individual feedback. Our results highlight the complex tradeoffs confronting managers and management accountants when designing performance feedback systems and the need for them to consider employees' tasks holistically rather than in isolation when deciding what type of performance feedback to provide.JEL Classifications: C71; M41; J31.Data Availability: Available upon request.