Who gets a limited training opportunity can affect more than one worker's skills, according to a Cornell-led study. In an experiment, lower-performing participants felt more slighted when passed over in a setting designed to encourage equal treatment, while higher performers reacted more negatively when passed over in a merit-based setting.
The findings suggest managers should consider how employees understand fairness before assigning professional development, the researchers said. The study does not show that the same reactions would occur in every workplace; it used a simulated task with 186 participants rather than observing actual employers.
The paper, published Sept. 20 in the Journal of Accounting Research, was co-authored by Martin Wiernsperger of Cornell's SC Johnson College of Business, Eric Chan of the University of Texas at Austin and Mackenzie Feinberg of Emory University. The researchers examined a familiar management trade-off: Training a lower performer may improve overall output, but passing over a stronger employee can seem unfair.
Participants worked in three-person groups, with one assigned as manager and two as employees. The employees took quizzes on familiar idioms, with questions weighted toward either English or German; few participants understood German. In one version they chose their quiz, representing a more merit-based environment. In another, a quiz was assigned at random to represent more equal treatment.
The manager then chose one employee for help with German idioms before a second quiz. The higher scorer in each round received a larger prize while the other employee received nothing. Afterward, participants did a task that benefited the manager but not themselves, giving researchers a way to measure their reactions to the training decision.
Employees generally responded positively to receiving help. But lower performers in the equal-treatment setting were less enthusiastic about getting it than higher performers, and they reacted more negatively when they were passed over, the researchers reported.
In the merit-based setting, higher performers were more upset when they were not selected. Lower and higher performers there responded similarly when they did receive training. Wiernsperger said most managers in the experiment chose to train lower performers, apparently focusing on the potential productivity gain.
The role-playing design let the team compare the two sets of norms while holding the training choice relatively constant. It also limits how directly the results can be applied to real workplaces, where training has longer-term consequences and employees have relationships, pay differences and career histories that a short quiz cannot capture.
For managers, the researchers said the practical question is how to balance improvement for workers who need it with the message sent to workers who have already performed well. A training decision that seems efficient to a manager may affect how others respond to the team afterward.
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