Performance Effects of Setting a High Reference Point for Peer-Performance Comparison

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Eyring, Henry; Narayanan, V. G.
• 署名单位: University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Harvard University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0021-8456
• DOI: 10.1111/1475-679X.12199
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 581-615
• 关键词: social comparisons; expectancy-theory; GOAL DIFFICULTY; INFORMATION; COMPENSATION; tournaments; ability; average; STANDARDS; feedback

摘要

We conduct a field experiment, based on a registered report accepted by the Journal of Accounting Research, to test performance effects of setting a high reference point for peer-performance comparison. Relative to providing the median as a reference point for online students to compare themselves to, providing the top quartile: damps performance for those below the median, boosts performance for those between the median and top quartile, and, in the case of outcome but not process comparison, boosts performance for those above the top quartile. We do not find that either reference point yields a greater average performance effect. However, providing the more effective reference point in each partition of initial performance yields a 40% greater performance effect than providing either reference point uniformly. Students access the online courses intermittently over the span of a year. Our effects derive from small portions of our treatment groups5% in the case of process comparison and 26% in the case of outcome comparisonwho accessed treatment and who were, on average, more active leading up to and during our intervention.