Overview
Description
The Information Age has introduced well-received opportunities to track performance. Fitbits and Fuelbands allow individuals to track their own performance; companies like Uber and leading hospitals help you choose a driver or a doctor based on how others rated them; and organizations are voluntarily or by mandate publicizing measures as with college tuition hikes and non-profit outcome measures.
This wave of information makes research on performance measurement, communication, and disclosure increasingly relevant. At the company and market levels, it allows understanding effects of disclosure on elements other than investment, such as operations, costs, and revenues. At the individual level, it allows understanding performance feedback and individuals' responses.
Regarding disclosure, hospital systems including Stanford Medicine, Wake Forest Baptist Health, and Cleveland Clinic have posted patient ratings of doctors online. The University of Utah Health Care was the first academic hospital system to do so in 2012. My dissertation focuses on the resulting service, patient choice, and health outcome effects. Doing so advances research on disclosure by looking beyond its use in capital markets and effects on investment, and toward its effect on employees and consumers. It also contributes to the national health care debate, especially as relating to the financial and health outcome effects of emphasizing certain measures.
Regarding performance feedback, theory from behavioral economics predicts how individuals will process and respond to information differently depending on its content and display design. I have tested performance feedback content and display design in field experiments with one of the leading open online learning platforms. This research advances understanding of performance dashboards, a common management tool, and provides a proving ground for theory from behavioral economics.