The Effects of Relative Performance Information on Individuals’ Satisfaction with the Work Itself

• In Event: Business Ethics and Corporate Governance

Abstract

Increasing employee’s satisfaction with the work they perform provides benefits for organizations, such as increased morale and less employee turnover intention. In this paper we test Hackman and Oldham’s (1976) Job Characteristics Model proposition that feedback positively affects individual’s satisfaction with the work they perform. The feedback mechanism we examine is relative performance information (RPI). Consistent with the Job Characteristic Model’s proposition, our results demonstrate that providing RPI to individuals affects their satisfaction with the work itself. On average, individuals who receive RPI self-report more satisfaction with the task. Controlling for motivation, ability, and performance we find individuals who receive RPI perceive the task to be less boring, more exciting, more interesting, and more rewarding than those who do not receive RPI. Performing supplemental analysis, we find our results are primarily driven by talented individuals.

Authors

• Lee Michael Kersting, Northern Kentucky University

• Robert Neil Marley, Georgia Southern University