Mixed Signals, Unequal Lessons: How Specialists and Generalists Differ in Response and Exposure to Inconsistent Performance Feedback
Mixed Signals, Unequal Lessons: How Specialists and Generalists Differ in Response and Exposure to Inconsistent Performance Feedback
Speaker: Cassandra Chambers, Johns Hopkins Carey Business School
Abstract: Prior research offers mixed findings regarding how decision-makers respond to inconsistent feedback–the simultaneous presence of positive and negative evaluations—and has largely overlooked what shapes their exposure to such feedback. To reconcile these findings, we draw on human capital specificity theories that distinguish between generalists and specialists. We theorize that experience specialization shapes both responses and exposure to inconsistent feedback, arguing that specialists are more motivated to leverage conflicting signals into performance improvement. In particular, specialists are more likely to treat negatively evaluated dimensions as diagnostic, resulting in greater improvement along those dimensions relative to positive ones. Given the conceptually narrower problems that specialists engage with, we expect them to be systematically less exposed to inconsistent feedback than generalists, who operate across diverse knowledge domains and thus encounter more heterogeneous evaluative standards. We test and find support for these hypotheses using ten years of longitudinal data on knowledge contributions from Stack Overflow, an online programming community. Overall, our study addresses key tensions in understanding the microfoundations of organizational learning in the presence of ambiguity, highlights the neglected issue of differential exposure to inconsistent feedback, and underscores the need to examine the individual factors that influence the interpretation and assimilation of performance feedback.
Bio: Cassandra Chambers is an Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. Using large-scale data and experiments, she examines how recognition at work—including nonmonetary rewards, reputation signals, and performance feedback—shapes motivation, learning, and cooperation. She earned her PhD in Business Administration (Management and Organizations) from the University of Michigan.