The Effect of Dialogue and Relative Performance Reports on Professionals’ Productivity

Abstract

This study examines productivity among professionals (i.e., physicians, psychologists, therapists and nurses) in a mental healthcare clinic. We investigate the effect of dialogue and Relative Per-formance Information (RPI) reports. We hypothesize that dialogue increases perceived goal inter-dependency, group identity, the quality of relationships between management and professionals, as well as perceived organizational support, and thus leads to higher productivity. Furthermore, we posit that RPI reports increase professionals’ productivity when they have taken part in dia-logue. We argue that dialogue enhances the relevance of productivity allowing RPI reports to trigger professionals’ involvement in social comparison and impression management. We test our predictions using a field experiment with nested design, which we conduct in the mental health division of a large North European university hospital. Our findings show that RPI reports drive physicians and psychologists to act in a more productive manner, while dialogue yields the oppo-site effect. These effects appear on one dimension of productivity. On other productivity dimen-sions and for other occupational groups, we do not find significant effects. Implications for re-search and practice are discussed.