The Role of Effort in Shifting Preference for Feedback Stimuli

ABSTRACT

Researchers have examined preference for the format of delivery of feedback, however little research has examined strategies to increase feedback and praise desirability. The current study aimed to evaluate whether preference shifted for stimuli that signaled work and for manager-praise stimuli that were delivered after work. Moreover, we sought to understand if these preference shifts were greater when the work was higher-effort compared to lower-effort work tasks (a phenomenon described in the basic literature as within-trial contrast). The study took place in a simulated work environment. Sixteen university students clicked on a shape that produced the work task, completed a mock medical data-entry task, and received manager-praise on an FR1 and FR20 schedule. At the start of the study and following each contingency exposure trials, they completed a preference assessment for both the shapes and the manager-feedback stimuli. The primary dependent variable was the percentage of preference change for two categories of stimuli – shapes presented at the beginning of trials that signaled which condition participants were in and manager-praise stimuli presented at the end of trials. Preference for the shape stimuli for both high- and low-effort stimuli decreased indicating that stimuli that signal work may become less preferred. Preference for the manager-praise stimuli for both high- and low-effort stimuli increased suggesting that stimuli that follow work may become more preferred. Overall, these data suggest that the conditions under which managers deliver feedback and praise may influence preference for those stimuli.     

Blunders in international marketing: Fact or fiction

Popular literature on international marketing gives the impression that U.S. firms are insensitive, lack understanding of the unique socio-political, cultural and trade environments of foreign markets, and are probably blundering all the time. Is this really so? To find an answer to this question, this article reports the results of the study that was conducted to verify some of the more publicized blunders in international marketing.     

The role of inferential accuracy in performance rating

The presence of shared implicit theories of performance is used in explaining the failure of behavioral anchors to improve performance ratings. It is proposed that efforts to improve rating accuracy also will be hampered by a preoccupation with observation. Instead, attention needs to be focused on the inferential accuracy of the rater and the cognitive processes and implicit theories upon which raters rely.     

Palliative and curative care nurses' attitudes toward dying and death in the hospital setting

This paper explores the errors involved in the approximation of both the maximum and sum of two independent Beta random variables, each by another Beta random variable. The principal area of application is the time analysis of PERT networks, and the results are interpreted and discussed in terms of this application. The error was found to be acceptable for the greater part of the range of the parameters involved. The results will help practitioners estimate the mean and standard deviation of the completion time of PERT networks.     

Tackling the human problems in planning

This article presents findings from the first phase of a research program on the management of long-range planning systems. The initial focus is on behavioral problems encountered by those using planning systems and solutions for dealing with them. Both the problems and solutions were identified by chief planning officers during a university sponsored workshop. Some observations are offered about the way in which managerial thought processes affect the potential for resolving complex behavioral problems in organizations.     

The new class of chief executive officer

This article summarizes the results of research into the ways in which environmental forces are changing the management task of chief executive officers of large corporations. The article comments on the changing business environment; on the time spent by managers on environmental forces; changes in the basic strategies of managers concerned with major social and political environmental forces; the characteristics which chief executive officers believe their successors must have to be effective managers; major ways in which the impact of environment on the CEO is changing the infra-structure and decision-making process; and, finally, a brief look at the future.     

Evaluating basic research strategies

A model has been developed to describe the pharmaceutical research and drug innovation process. The model originally served to show the range of results that could arise from research in the field of infectious disease chemotherapy over a sustained period of time. The main goal of the model was to illuminate the risk/reward/time tradeoff faced by management in selecting a particular research strategy. The results obtained with this model were one of several considerations influencing the research strategy decision of CIBA-GEIGY in 1976 to adapt and strengthen its research effort in infectious disease chemotherapy.This model has so far been applied only for the comparative evaluation of infectious disease chemotherapy research strategies. However, there is no conceptual reason why it should be limited to this field of drug research or indeed to pharmaceutical research at all. This type of analysis should be applicable wherever clear, product-oriented research goals can be identified and defined, where some reasonable financial reward can be attached to achieving these goals, and where an assessment—albeit subjective—can be made of the likelihood of achieving these goals.     

Mlonte Carlo Techniques for Quantitative Uncertainty Analysis in Public Health Risk Assessments

Most public health risk assessments assume and combine a series of average, conservative, and worst-case values to derive a conservative point estimate of risk. This procedure has major limitations. This paper demonstrates a new methodology for extended uncertainty analyses in public health risk assessments using Monte Carlo techniques. The extended method begins as do some conventional methods--with the preparation of a spreadsheet to estimate exposure and risk. This method, however, continues by modeling key inputs as random variables described by probability density functions (PDFs). Overall, the technique provides a quantitative way to estimate the probability distributions for exposure and health risks within the validity of the model used. As an example, this paper presents a simplified case study for children playing in soils contaminated with benzene and benzo(a)pyrene (BaP).     

Towards an Objective Classification Scheme for Organizational Task Environments

This study replicates, refines, cross-validates and simplifies a scheme of operationalization and measurement of environmental dimensions proposed by Dess and Beard (1984). Employing a sample of 60 industries and data over a 16-year period, this study found considerable support for the viability of the three dimensions of munificence, dynamism and complexity. The data intensive and computationally complex operationalization scheme was simplified using a discriminant analysis approach and the discriminant functions were cross-validated using an alternate data set.     

European management: An emerging competitive advantage of European nations

This article extends the debate begun in the June 1992 issue of EMJ when the authors first criticized Michael Porter's explanatory framework in his Competitive Advantage of Nations (1990), over the role of national culture on the competitive advantage of nations. In this paper, Frans van den Bosch and Arno van Prooijen stress that Europe is a locus of competitive advantage if one is prepared to pay attention to the possibility of ‘European Management’ as a potential asset of European firms. In this connection, the transnationalization of European firms is of importance.