Subjective vs. Objective Measurement of Creative Performance: Controllability and Learning

Abstract

Creativity is crucial for companies to remain innovative and competitive. While incentives for creativity have drawn much attention, its measurement, surprisingly, has not. In this paper, we investigate the effects of subjective versus objective performance measurement on creativity. We find that objective evaluation has both positive and negative effects. While it motivates more effort than subjective evaluation, it also misdirects effort: any objective measure is only a proxy for creativity, which is subjective, and therefore causes goal incongruence. To explore this trade-off, we conduct a laboratory experiment where a Scrabble-like real-effort task is solved under different incentive schemes, simulating subjective (jury ratings) and objective performance evaluation (Scrabble scores). We find that the positive effect of motivation counterbalances the negative effect of incongruence, so that objective evaluation results in the same level of creativity as subjective evaluation. We conclude that both effects have to be taken into account, since objective measurement can override but not avoid incongruence.