Research Summary
Research Summary
Overview
Description
The Information Age has introduced well recieved opportunities to track performance. Fitbits and Fuelbands show individuals their own performance; service companies including Uber and leading hospitals help pick from drivers or doctors based on how others rate them; and organizations are voluntarily or by mandate publicizing aggregate performance as with college tuition hikes and charitable organizations' impact measures.
This wave of information makes research on performance measurement, communication, and disclosure increasingly relevant. At the company and market level, this development allows better understanding effects of disclosure other than on investment, such as those on operations, costs, and revenues. At the individual level, it allows better understanding performance feedback's effects.
Regarding disclosure, in 2012 the University of Utah Health Care was the first academic hospital system to publicly disclose its internally sourced patient satisfaction ratings and reviews online. That move was followed by Stanford, Wakeforest, and Cleveland Clinic. My dissertation explores the effects of this disclosure on subsequent performance. Doing so expands literature on public disclosure by looking beyond its use in capital markets and effects on investment, and toward its use to influence on employees and consumers. It also contributes to the national debate on improvement in health care, especially the financial and health effects of emphasizing different measures.
Regarding individuals and their use of performance feedback, theory from behavorial economics helps in predicting how individuals will process and respond to information depending on what is shared and how it is displayed. I have tested variants of feedback content and design in one of the leading open online education platforms. This research helps understand how to better employ performance dashboards, a common management tool, and also offers a proving ground for theories from behavioral economics.