Narratives as a Persuasion Tool in Performance Appraisals

Alice Soldà () and Marie Claire Villeval ()
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Alice Soldà: Emlyon business school, CNRS, Université Lumière Lyon 2, Université Jean-Monnet Saint-Etienne, GATE, 69007, Lyon, France
Marie Claire Villeval: CNRS, Université Lumière Lyon 2, Université Jean-Monnet Saint-Etienne, emlyon business school, GATE, 69007, Lyon, France; IZA, Bonn, Germany

No 2505, Working Papers from Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon

Abstract: We investigated whether individuals use narratives about the role of luck to influence decision-makers’ interpretation of noisy performance signals in a tournament setting. In an experiment, pairs of workers were either rewarded for accurately estimating their relative performance (Control treatment), persuading a manager they outperformed their competitor (Strategic treatment), or both (Trade-Off treatment). Results show that workers were most likely to adopt self-serving narratives attributing signals of lower performance to bad luck in the Strategic treatment. This tendency was reduced in the Trade-Off treatment where accuracy incentives were introduced. While self-serving narratives influenced managers’ decisions regarding the allocation of the winner’s prize, they did not change workers’ beliefs, suggesting that the narratives did not deceive them.

Keywords: Narratives; persuasion; beliefs; tournament; performance evaluation; online experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D83 J33 M52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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