Decision Support Systems

It is imperative for researchers to consider the combined effects of feedback and reward on individuals' behavior. Reward structures have informational and controlling attributes perceived by the individuals subject to the reward, and these informational and controlling attributes commingle with the informational and controlling nature of the feedback characteristic of a DSS. Perception of reward structures can be significantly influenced by the nature of feedback, with informational (controlling) feedback highlighting the informational (controlling) aspect of a reward structure.

Reward is an example of a controlling event that in itself may work against the positive effect of the information contained in the performance-contingent reward. Although task motivation may be undermined by the prospect of reward during task performance, this effect may be offset by enhanced performance motivated by the expectation of reward. Decision performance may not be undermined in the presence of informational feedback and performance-contingent rewards because cue values may highlight the informational aspect of performance-contingent rewards and offset their controlling aspect. This sheds light on Chan et al.'s findings on insignificant decision performance effects for individuals provided with either an informational or controlling feedback when performance-contingent reward is administered. Consistent with Ryan et al.'s findings for their intrinsic motivation variable, Chan et al. report that the informational feedback/performance-contingent reward group marginally outperforms the no-feedback/task-contingent reward group. However, contrary to Ryan et al.'s finding of no significant difference for their intrinsic motivation measure, Chan et al. demonstrate that the controlling feedback/performance-contingent reward group performs better than the no-feedback/task-contingent reward group. This alternative finding is not surprising considering the combined effects of the participants' positive response to the controlling feedback in a DSS environment and the positive effect theorized for performance-contingent rewards on decision performance (as opposed to the negative effect on intrinsic motivation in Ryan et al.'s study).