To tell or not to tell: the incentive effects of disclosing employer assessments

Publikation: Beitrag in FachzeitschriftArtikelForschungPeer-Review

Autoren

  • Alexandra Lilge
  • Abhishek Ramchandani

Externe Organisationen

  • University of Texas at Austin
  • University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
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Details

OriginalspracheEnglisch
Seiten (von - bis)2832-2870
Seitenumfang39
FachzeitschriftReview of accounting studies
Jahrgang29
Ausgabenummer3
Frühes Online-Datum2 Juni 2023
PublikationsstatusVeröffentlicht - Sept. 2024

Abstract

Should employers disclose their assessments of their employees? Popular managerial advice suggests that telling employees that they are assessed to have high potential leads to greater effort and engagement, boosting firm profits. However, some employers still choose to withhold employee assessments. What explains this paradoxical observation? We show that disclosing a positive assessment to an employee increases his incentive to appear successful. Success can be achieved by working hard or by misreporting. If the internal controls are sufficiently weak, the employee excessively substitutes misreporting for effort, thereby decreasing firm profits. Consequently, our model predicts that employers withhold assessments when internal controls are weak. Other predictions are that, all else equal, employers with an experienced human resources (HR) function will be more likely to disclose assessments, and employers who hire from “prestigious” target schools will be less likely to disclose assessments.

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

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To tell or not to tell: the incentive effects of disclosing employer assessments. / Lilge, Alexandra; Ramchandani, Abhishek.
in: Review of accounting studies, Jahrgang 29, Nr. 3, 09.2024, S. 2832-2870.

Publikation: Beitrag in FachzeitschriftArtikelForschungPeer-Review

Lilge A, Ramchandani A. To tell or not to tell: the incentive effects of disclosing employer assessments. Review of accounting studies. 2024 Sep;29(3):2832-2870. Epub 2023 Jun 2. doi: 10.1007/s11142-023-09769-6
Lilge, Alexandra ; Ramchandani, Abhishek. / To tell or not to tell : the incentive effects of disclosing employer assessments. in: Review of accounting studies. 2024 ; Jahrgang 29, Nr. 3. S. 2832-2870.
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