Chapter 4 reviewed the main findings of several studies of performance feedback on organizations. It aimed to give enough detail for readers interested in applying the insights of performance feedback research to theory or practice of management, but stopped short of a full description of how the research was done. For researchers interested in doing research on performance feedback processes, additional details on how the studies were done would be helpful. This chapter aims to give an overview of research methods used in performance feedback studies and more detailed descriptions of the radio and shipbuilding data used in chapter 4. The descriptions are meant to supplement the general knowledge of research methods one gets from methodology courses and textbooks, so I will point to methods rather than describe them in detail.

Basic methods

Performance feedback affects many organizational behaviors, and research on performance feedback requires that each behavior be analyzed with a suitable method. These methods also need to be sufficiently standardized to allow comparison of findings across studies of different outcomes. The preceding chapters have shown studies on decision-making processes that triggered behaviors such as strategic change, innovations, investment, and R&D expenditures. These behaviors differ in many respects, including the decision makers responsible for outlining plans and making the final decision, the extent and type of uncertainty involved, the degree to which the decisions can be reversed if they prove to be mistakes, and other organizational and environmental characteristics. Such considerations enter the modeling stage when variables are selected.