The use of priority information in performance feedback

    Authors

    R. D. Pritchard; S. S. Youngcourt; J. R. Philo; D. McMonagle;J. H. David

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Hum. Perform.

    Keywords

    ROLE AMBIGUITY; ROLE-CONFLICT; ORGANIZATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY; JOB-PERFORMANCE; MENTAL WORKLOAD; META-ANALYSIS; GOAL; CRITIQUE; BEHAVIOR; INTERVENTIONS; Psychology, Applied

    Abstract

    To provide the most value to an organization, individuals must focus efforts on those outputs that have maximum value to the organization. However, the realities of the workplace are that information about performance and how individuals can add value to an organization is complex; that is, determining which activities to focus on is a fairly complex task because such information is nonlinear, whereby the importance of a certain activity may change depending on the level of performance at any given time. This article empirically examines whether providing complex, nonlinear feedback that reflects the complexities of the real world will result in a change in work outputs that reflect these nonlinearities. This article assesses whether employees can and do use complex feedback that reflects the complexity of the real world in the intended ways. In addition, this article examines whether individuals use feedback that includes priority information beyond feedback that reports on simple relative importance. Data were analyzed from 9 work units for time periods averaging a little over a year. Results indicate that, as predicted, when individuals have access to both complex, nonlinear priority information and simple, linear relative importance information, individuals can and do use the complex data in the intended way.

    Journal Title

    Human Performance

    Volume

    20

    Issue/Number

    1

    Publication Date

    1-1-2007

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    61

    Last Page

    83

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000245130700004

    ISSN

    0895-9285

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