IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/joares/v61y2023i2p653-690.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The (Un)Controllability Principle: The Benefits of Holding Employees Accountable for Uncontrollable Factors

Author

Listed:
  • JACOB ZUREICH

Abstract

The controllability principle suggests that employees should not be held accountable for factors outside their control. This study develops novel theory to challenge that thinking. According to the theory, holding employees accountable for uncontrollable factors like peer performance can lead to improved decision‐making by increasing how much employees learn from those uncontrollable factors. I expect this effect to occur because goal‐focused employees only consider information that seems goal‐relevant, and uncontrollable factors only seem goal relevant when employees are held accountable for them. Results from a decision‐making experiment support the theory. In particular, paying participants based on uncontrollable factors improves their decision‐making despite providing them with weaker economic incentives. This positive effect is more pronounced when the uncontrollable factors are more informative and when individuals are more goal‐focused. These findings reveal a previously unexplored benefit of disregarding the controllability principle that can help explain why broad, uncontrollable metrics are so prevalent and successful in practice.

Suggested Citation

  • Jacob Zureich, 2023. "The (Un)Controllability Principle: The Benefits of Holding Employees Accountable for Uncontrollable Factors," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 653-690, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:joares:v:61:y:2023:i:2:p:653-690
    DOI: 10.1111/1475-679X.12467
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-679X.12467
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1475-679X.12467?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Janet M. Currie & W. Bentley MacLeod, 2020. "Understanding Doctor Decision Making: The Case of Depression Treatment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(3), pages 847-878, May.
    2. Nicholas Bloom & Luis Garicano & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2014. "The Distinct Effects of Information Technology and Communication Technology on Firm Organization," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(12), pages 2859-2885, December.
    3. Baker, George P & Jensen, Michael C & Murphy, Kevin J, 1988. " Compensation and Incentives: Practice vs. Theory," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 43(3), pages 593-616, July.
    4. Khim Ong Kelly, 2007. "Feedback and Incentives on Nonfinancial Value Drivers: Effects on Managerial Decision Making," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(2), pages 523-556, June.
    5. George Baker, 2002. "Distortion and Risk in Optimal Incentive Contracts," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 37(4), pages 728-751.
    6. Simonsohn, Uri & Karlsson, Niklas & Loewenstein, George & Ariely, Dan, 2008. "The tree of experience in the forest of information: Overweighing experienced relative to observed information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 263-286, January.
    7. Bushman, RM & Indjejikian, RJ & Smith, A, 1995. "Aggregate performance measures in business unit manager compensation: The role of intrafirm interdependencies," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33, pages 101-128.
    8. Sloof, Randolph & van Praag, C. Mirjam, 2008. "Performance measurement, expectancy and agency theory: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(3-4), pages 794-809, September.
    9. Richard Williams, 2012. "Using the margins command to estimate and interpret adjusted predictions and marginal effects," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 12(2), pages 308-331, June.
    10. Janet M. Currie & W. Bentley MacLeod, 2018. "Understanding Doctor Decision Making: The Case of Depression," NBER Working Papers 24955, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Grafton, Jennifer & Lillis, Anne M. & Widener, Sally K., 2010. "The role of performance measurement and evaluation in building organizational capabilities and performance," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 35(7), pages 689-706, October.
    12. Anne M. Farrell & Kathryn Kadous & Kristy L. Towry, 2008. "Contracting on Contemporaneous versus Forward†Looking Measures: An Experimental Investigation," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(3), pages 773-802, September.
    13. Michael Burkert & Franz Michael Fischer & Florian Hoos & Karl Schuhmacher, 2017. "The relationship between lack of controllability and proactive work behaviour: an empirical analysis of competing theoretical explanations," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(2), pages 144-171, February.
    14. Demski, Js, 1976. "Uncertainty And Evaluation Based On Controllable Performance," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(2), pages 230-245.
    15. Gary E. Bolton & Elena Katok, 2008. "Learning by Doing in the Newsvendor Problem: A Laboratory Investigation of the Role of Experience and Feedback," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 10(3), pages 519-538, September.
    16. Bright (Yue) Hong & Timothy W. Shields, 2022. "How Do Reward Versus Penalty Framed Incentives Affect Diagnostic Performance in Auditing?," Working Papers 22-06, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    17. Edward P. Lazear, 2018. "Compensation and Incentives in the Workplace," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(3), pages 195-214, Summer.
    18. Diwas KC & Bradley R. Staats & Francesca Gino, 2013. "Learning from My Success and from Others' Failure: Evidence from Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(11), pages 2435-2449, November.
    19. Baiman, S & Noel, J, 1985. "Noncontrollable Costs And Responsibility Accounting," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 486-501.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bouwens, J.F.M.G. & van Lent, L.A.G.M., 2003. "Effort and Selection Effects of Incentive Contracts," Discussion Paper 2003-130, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    2. Manthei, Kathrin & Sliwka, Dirk & Vogelsang, Timo, 2021. "Information Provision, Incentives, and Attention: A Field Experiment on Facilitating and Influencing Managers' Decisions," IZA Discussion Papers 14199, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Bouwens, J.F.M.G. & van Lent, L.A.G.M., 2003. "Effort and Selection Effects of Incentive Contracts," Other publications TiSEM 46a62de7-d051-4620-93bb-3, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    4. James T. Mackey & F. Johnny Deng, 2016. "Examining the Role of Management Control Systems in the Creation of an Innovative Culture," International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management (IJITM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 13(03), pages 1-27, June.
    5. Marie, Olivier & Zwiers, Esmée, 2022. "Religious Barriers to Birth Control Access," CEPR Discussion Papers 17427, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Nguyen, Thi Thu & Mia, Lokman & Winata, Lanita & Chong, Vincent K., 2017. "Effect of transformational-leadership style and management control system on managerial performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 202-213.
    7. Eva Labro & Mark Lang & Jim Omartian, 2019. "Predictive Analytics and Organizational Architecture: Plant-Level Evidence from Census Data," Working Papers 19-02, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    8. Uwe Jirjahn & Jens Mohrenweiser, 2019. "Performance Pay and Applicant Screening," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 57(3), pages 540-575, September.
    9. Attema, Arthur E. & Galizzi, Matteo M. & Groß, Mona & Hennig-Schmidt, Heike & Karay, Yassin & L’Haridon, Olivier & Wiesen, Daniel, 2023. "The formation of physician altruism," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    10. Peter Rønø Thingholm, 2023. "Provider Spill-Overs in Opioid Prescription Leniency and Patient – Labor Market Outcomes," Economics Working Papers 2023-05, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    11. Baik, Bok & Evans, John H. & Kim, Kyonghee & Yanadori, Yoshio, 2016. "White collar incentives," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 34-49.
    12. Christian Posso & Jorge Tamayo & Arlen Guarin & Estefania Saravia, 2024. "Luck of the Draw: The Causal Effect of Physicians on Birth Outcomes," Borradores de Economia 1269, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    13. Randolph Sloof & C. Mirjam van Praag, 2008. "The Effect of Noise in a Performance Measure on Work Motivation," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-074/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    14. Sloof, Randolph & van Praag, C. Mirjam, 2010. "The effect of noise in a performance measure on work motivation: A real effort laboratory experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 751-765, October.
    15. van Veen-Dirks, Paula, 2010. "Different uses of performance measures: The evaluation versus reward of production managers," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 141-164, February.
    16. Catherine Thomas, 2011. "Too Many Products: Decentralized Decision Making in Multinational Firms," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 280-306, February.
    17. Si, Yafei & Bateman, Hazel & Chen, Shu & Hanewald, Katja & Li, Bingqin & Su, Min & Zhou, Zhongliang, 2023. "Quantifying the financial impact of overuse in primary care in China: A standardised patient study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 320(C).
    18. Zabel, Astrid & Roe, Brian, 2009. "Optimal design of pro-conservation incentives," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 126-134, November.
    19. Grigolon, Laura & Lasio, Laura, 2023. "Biased beliefs and stigma as barriers to treatment and innovation adoption," CEPR Discussion Papers 17938, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. ASUYAMA Yoko & OWAN Hideo, 2024. "People Management Skills, Senior Leadership Skills and the Peter Principle," Discussion papers 24037, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:joares:v:61:y:2023:i:2:p:653-690. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0021-8456 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.