EXPRESS: Responding to Performance Feedback: Evaluating and Selecting between self-reliant and assistance-reliant means

Abstract

How does performance feedback shape decision-makers’ evaluation and selection of already-identified organizational means for achieving organizational goals? We develop and test a theory explaining how performance feedback influences preferences between self-reliant and assistance-reliant means. We argue that performance relative to aspirations leads decision-makers to draw broader capability inferences about the organization's general ability to achieve organizational goals through its own capabilities, thereby shaping beliefs about other means and shifting preferences between them. Across six experiments with experienced decision-makers, we show that lower performance relative to aspirations increases preferences for assistance-reliant means. We further demonstrate that these effects extend beyond the focal organizational mean and goal: performance feedback in one domain influences beliefs and preferences in other domains. Finally, we show that external attributions weaken these effects because feedback becomes less informative about the organization’s own capabilities. By explaining alternative evaluation and selection, we advance performance feedback theory within the BTOF.