Designing Feedback Systems for an Entitled Generation: How Psychological Entitlement Moderates the Relation between Performance Feedback and Individual Effort

• In Event: Management Accounting 3

Abstract

We conduct an experiment wherein we manipulate two aspects of performance feedback (valence of the feedback message and “peerness” of the feedback source) and examine how psychological entitlement moderates the relation between these characteristics of feedback and subsequent performance. We find that for individuals lower in psychological entitlement, negative feedback substantially improves performance when issued by a peer, but not when issued by a non-peer. In contrast, for individuals higher in psychological entitlement, negative feedback substantially improves performance when issued by a non-peer, but not when issued by a peer. These findings highlight that while a management control system (MCS) must understandably have standardized processes and procedures, a MCS for the notably entitled generation of millennial employees will need to become more flexible, adaptable, and customizable to tailor components such as feedback 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