Although performance feedback has been given great importance in fostering employee self-efficacy that provide access to performance and other positive outcomes, contrasting views still exist on the effectiveness of performance feedback based on factors like the variation of individual differences, feedback characteristics, and task situation features, etc. However, the potential impact of other organizational institutions on feedback effectiveness was overlooked previously. Reward system may affect the benefit individual obtained from feedback, for the value orientation implied in reward changes individual cognition and behavior pattern in task, and it also influences the effectiveness of those feedback messages. Recent studies have provided evidence suggesting that specific incentive style subliminally activates particular awareness of the inherent value in task situation. In this view, merely reminders of the concept of money or honor – two kinds of typical incentive styles - could change personal cognition and interpersonal behavior. On the one hand, money is linked to a focus on personal inputs and outputs in a transactional term, which may manifest behaviorally as an emphasis on personal performance. In terms of that, individuals reminded of money are more interested in self-achievement, and possess a market-pricing orientation toward the interactions with others. They trade resources on the basis of equity, which underlies cost/benefit analyses, in which a person consider what he or she will receive in return before enacting a given behavior. On the other hand, honor represents affirmation and praise to individuals who comply with the rules of the common society. As it is the most typical form of social approval, sense of honor makes individuals obliged to follow and protect the social norms. Besides, interpersonal harmony is the core element of traditional system of social values in China. As a result, the emphasis on credit and reputation could arouse desire to satisfy the collective needs of sustaining cohesiveness and shaping solidarity. Accompany with this value orientation difference produced by incentive styles, individual self-concept tend to vary in accordance with the inner state of the incentive styles. Specifically, the market-pricing mode stresses the concept of private self, while social norms emphasize the concept of collective self. Since it is demonstrated that people prefer, more rapidly respond to , and are more sensitive to information that is in consistent with their self-concept, it seems reasonable that feedback message will be accepted and utilized more efficaciously by individual when the feedback adjusts its target according to the individual self-concept. As a consequence, the performance feedback designed based on reward system will effectively increase individual self-efficacy, and further promote the performance efforts, and lead to preferred outcomes eventually. In this study we discussed the interaction of performance feedback and incentive style in the process of promoting task performance and cooperation. We conducted a field study among undergraduate students to test our hypothesis. Data were collected in 2 rounds of surveys during 20 days in a large-scale urban event. All participants were volunteers in this event. 231 useable responses were available in total after matching data from two rounds of surveys with a response rate of 57.8%. We measured the independent variables (task performance, back-up behavior, knowledge sharing, and self-efficacy) in the 2 rounds of surveys. The first round survey was conducted approximately 1 week after the event starts (Time 1).The second round was conducted immediately when 2 weeks’ work ended (Time 2). While we manipulated incentive style (money/honor) and performance feedback (personal/collective) right after the first survey conducted. The results of this study show that incentive style and performance feedback have an interaction effect on task performance(F(1,226) = 4.35, p = .038))and cooperation behavior (back-up behavior:(F(1,226) = 12.52, p < .001), knowledge sharing(F(1,226) = 16.66, p < .001)).While self-efficacy has an mediated moderation effect in this process. Specifically, when monetary incentives were adopted, personal feedback improved task performance and increased cooperation more than collective feedback. In contrast, collective feedback produced higher task performance and cooperation when honor incentives were adopted. Meanwhile, self-efficacy moderated this process. Based on this result, we suggest administrators be cautious of the value message underlying the reward system. And it is recommended that organization should implement management styles that are in accordance with its culture background in order to facilitate sustainability of the organization.
Key words
money /
honor /
performance feedback /
cooperation behavior /
task performance