Who Are You to Tell Me That?! The Moderating Effect of Performance Feedback Source and Psychological Entitlement on Individual Performance

• In Event: Research Forum and Breakfast

Abstract

We conduct an experiment wherein we manipulate the source of negative performance feedback and examine how psychological entitlement moderates the relation between the source of the feedback and subsequent performance in a fixed pay environment. We find that when negative feedback is issued by a less authoritative, more peer source, greater levels of psychological entitlement lead to lower performance. In contrast, when negative feedback is issued by a more authoritative, less peer source, greater levels of psychological entitlement lead to higher performance. These findings highlight that, while a management control system must understandably have standardized processes and procedures, the effectiveness of management control systems can be improved by designing them to be more flexible, adaptable, and customizable such that components like performance feedback delivery can be tailored to individuals in order to better achieve organizational objectives.

Authors

• Darin Kip Holderness, West Virginia University

• Kari Joseph Olsen, University of Southern California

• Todd A Thornock, Iowa State University