The Provision of Relative Performance Feedback: An Analysis of Performance and Satisfaction
This paper studies the effect of providing relative performance feedback on individuals' performance, under two incentive schemes. In a laboratory setup, agents perform a real effort task. We show that relative performance feedback increases performance when performance is related to pay (piece rate) but has no effect on performance when pay is independent of performance (flat rate) These effects are independent of the agent's relative position. Subjects are also asked to rate their satisfaction during the experiment. We find that under flat rate, feedback has no effect on agents' satisfaction, while under piece rate, feedback about relative position affects satisfaction.