The Reactivity of Data-Feedback Interventions: A Field Test of the Social Information Processing Proposition

Abstract

Data-feedback interventions are used to collect information from organizational members to diagnose the causes of problems or opportunities for improvement and feed that data back to the organization to design and implement organizational changes. Questionnaires have long been used to gather organizational members’ perceptions about various features of the workplace for diagnostic and feedback purposes. In 1978, Gerald Salancik and Jeffrey Pfeffer's pioneering theoretical article that laid the foundation for social information processing (SIP) theory in organization and management research made a compelling and lasting case that the use of questionnaires in data-feedback interventions in organization development can be especially reactive instruments that produce spurious information about the organization and the need for change. Extensive SIP research reported positive yet modest support for this proposition, and the reactivity of data-feedback interventions has largely been discounted in organizational change practice. A study that accounts for key problems underlying the SIP reactivity research was conducted to address whether the limited treatment of reactivity effects in organization change is warranted. It provides evidence-based knowledge of whether the possible reactivity effects of data-feedback interventions can continue to be overlooked in organizational change practice or may be more prevalent than expected and need serious attention. The study results challenge the generality of the SIP proposition, indicating that reactivity risks may be overestimated in stable, high-trust environments but remain a concern in low-tenure or low-trust contexts.