Lies and biased evaluation: A real-effort experiment

Julie Rosaz () and Marie Claire Villeval

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2012, vol. 84, issue 2, 537-549

Abstract: Employees’ performance evaluation has been generalized in companies but biased reviews and misreporting may impair its quality. In our experiment workers perform a real-effort task and supervisors report the workers’ performance to the experimenter. We find that more than one third of supervisors misreport their worker's performance. Misreporting mainly consists of selfish black lies (that increase the supervisor's earnings at the detriment of the worker) and Pareto white lies (that increase the earnings of both), according to Erat and Gneezy's (2012) terminology. Workers anticipate biased appraisals and misreporting is more frequent when supervisors’ second-order beliefs are elicited.

Keywords: Performance evaluation; Lies; Deception; Misreporting; Guilt-aversion; Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D83 M52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (39)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Lies and Biased Evaluation: A Real-Effort Experiment (2012)
Working Paper: Lies and Biased Evaluation: A Real-Effort Experiment (2011)
Working Paper: Lies and Biased Evaluation in a Real-Effort Experiment (2011)
Working Paper: Lies and Biased Evaluation in a Real-Effort Experiment (2011)
Working Paper: Lies and Biased Evaluation in a Real-Effort Experiment (2011)
Working Paper: Lies and Biased Evaluation: A Real-Effort Experiment (2011)
Working Paper: Lies and Biased Evaluation: A Real-Effort Experiment (2011)
Working Paper: Lies and Biased Evaluation in a Real-Effort Experiment (2010)
Working Paper: Lies and Biased Evaluation in a Real-Effort Experiment (2010)
Working Paper: Lies and Biased Evaluation in a Real-Effort Experiment (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:84:y:2012:i:2:p:537-549

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2012.09.002

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