Online experiment_prolific

Using an experiment, we study the interplay between cognitive intrusion and performance feedback within a multitask environment. Psychology studies document the negative effect of cognitive intrusion caused by the information about a future task on performance. We reason that cognitive intrusion interacts with the feedback system to influence employee outcomes. Providing frequent feedback can direct employee attention to the current task and hence we theorize that cognitive intrusion will reduce employee performance, but only when the feedback frequency is low. Consistent with our theory, we find that the performance of employees reduces in the presence of cognitive intrusion when the feedback frequency is low, but not when it is high. Additional analysis highlights that attention depletion fully mediates the effect of intrusion on task performance. Our study contributes to the performance management literature and sheds light on the interplay between design of control systems and employee attention in sequential task environments.

本研究通过实验方法，探究多任务环境下认知侵入（Cognitive Intrusion）与绩效反馈之间的交互作用。已有心理学研究证实，由未来任务相关信息引发的认知侵入会对任务绩效产生负面影响。本研究提出，认知侵入会与反馈系统相互作用，进而影响员工产出。高频绩效反馈可引导员工将注意力聚焦于当前任务，据此我们提出理论假说：仅当反馈频率较低时，认知侵入才会降低员工绩效。实验结果与本研究的理论假说一致：当反馈频率较低时，存在认知侵入的员工绩效显著下降；而当反馈频率较高时，该效应不复存在。补充分析显示，注意力耗竭（Attention Depletion）在认知侵入对任务绩效的影响中发挥完全中介作用。本研究丰富了绩效管理领域的相关文献，并为序贯任务环境中控制系统设计与员工注意力之间的交互关系提供了新的理论视角。