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

• In Event: DSFI Session 1

Abstract

We conduct an experiment wherein we manipulate two aspects of performance feedback (valence of the feedback message and source of the feedback) 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 improves performance more when issued by a peer than when issued by a non-peer. In contrast, for individuals higher in psychological entitlement, negative feedback improves performance more when issued by a non-peer than when issued by a peer. These findings highlight that while a management control system must understandably have standardized processes and procedures, the effectiveness of these 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