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The idea that structure —explicit and predetermined rules that are imposed to guide behavior in situations and tasks— can elevate and improve performance is well established in the field of management. However, what is largely absent from the literature is an investigation of individuals' perceptions and attitudes towards the structures that are often embedded in tasks and situations necessary for our work. As perceptions are consequential antecedents of behavior, how individuals perceive these structured devices may have important implications for the tasks and experiences they choose to engage in and support. The papers in this symposium build on prior work on the topic of structure by making three important contributions: 1) they begin to investigate how people perceive the impact of adding structure on enjoyment and effectiveness; 2) they demonstrate how structure can provide interpersonal benefits— topic preparation improves conversations and precommitment strategies facilitate the development of interpersonal trust; and 3) they show how structural attributions shape perceptions of others, the self, and support for policy. Ultimately, the work presented in this symposium highlights the power of perceptions and how they might hinder our ability to capitalize on the benefits that structure can confer in organizations and society. Structure—The Unwanted Ally: Perceptions and Preferences for Structured vs. Unstructured Tasks Author: Kelly Harrington; Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern U. Author: Loran F. Nordgren; Northwestern U. The Power of Forethought: Brainstorming Flexible Topics Improves Conversations Author: Nicole Abi-Esber; Harvard Business School Author: Alison Wood Brooks; Harvard U. Precommitment Allows Leaders to Maintain Trust When De-Escalating Commitment Author: Ariella Kristal; Harvard Business School Author: Charles Adam Dorison; - Who's responsible? How structural attributions affect how we see ourselves and others Author: Sophia Pink; The Wharton School, U. of Pennsylvania [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mentoring is an important organizational process that contributes to career development and personal growth. Mentors are uniquely positioned to provide opportunities for learning by sharing important feedback with their mentees, and research on mentoring has demonstrated its ability to help mentees cope with major organizational shocks. The goals of this symposium are to explore new insights and identify communication behaviors that can enable the creation of more positive workplace mentorship relationships. In pursuit of these two missions, in the proposed symposium we bring together four papers to reveal novel theoretical directions and important empirical insights about factors that may aid or hamper beneficial work mentoring relationships. Our discussant, Taya Cohen, will help integrate these papers and facilitate discussion. We hope the findings presented will reveal novel and important empirical insights, and aid business organizations and managers of the future in creating beneficial work mentoring relationships. * The Detrimental Effects of High-Status Mentors for Low Performers * Presenter: Jennifer Abel; Harvard Business School * Presenter: Paul Isaac Green; U. of Texas at Austin * Presenter: Ting Zhang; Harvard Business School * Presenter: Francesca Gino; Harvard Business School * Tips from the Top: Do the Best Performers Really Give the Best Advice? * Presenter: David Levari; Harvard Business School * Presenter: Daniel Gilbert; Harvard U. * Presenter: Timothy Wilson; U. of Virginia * The Importance of Honest and Benevolent Feedback in the Workplace * Presenter: Kori Krueger; Carnegie Mellon U. -Tepper School of Business * Presenter: Binyamin Cooper; Carnegie Mellon U. * Presenter: Emma Levine; U. Of Chicago * Presenter: Taya R. Cohen; Carnegie Mellon U. -Tepper School of Business * Overcoming Interpersonal Hesitance to Give Honest Feedback Through Benevolent Candor * Presenter: Ariella Kristal; Harvard Business School * Presenter: Michael Yeomans; Imperial College Business School [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feedback is an integral part of organizational life. It is a crucial process through which individuals can improve their learning, growth, and development (Ashford & Cummings, 1983; Higgins & Thomas, 2001). Past research has highlighted how the influence of feedback on employee attitudes and behaviors can depend on the approach through which feedback is delivered (Brutus, 2010; Ilgen et al., 1979; Kluger & DeNisi, 1996; Shute, 2008; Zhou, 1998). This symposium aims to deepen our understanding of the antecedents and consequences of different feedback styles and approaches. The presented work offers insights from the giver perspective of providing different forms of performance feedback, as well as the receivers' perspective regarding preferences for and receipt of different forms of feedback. Altogether, this symposium highlights two primary aspects of feedback in organizations, using a variety of methodologies. First, papers 1 and 2 demonstrate how givers' work experiences and goal frames influences the type and delivery of feedback offered, which can lead to different employee attitudes and perceptions. Subsequently, papers 3 and 4 turn to feedback receivers, and highlight gender differences in the types of feedback women and men receive and prefer. Overall, this symposium offers insights into how givers' experiences and attitudes can meaningfully impact the type of feedback offered, and how recipient gender can shape the experience of receiving different types of feedback. * Managers' Experience at Work Determines Their Approaches in Feedback * Presenter: Jinseok Chun; Duke U. * Presenter: Jin Nam Choi; Seoul National U. * When Best Intentions Backfire: The Interpersonal Cost of Motivational Feedback * Presenter: Min Ju Lee; U. of Texas at Austin * Presenter: Paul Isaac Green; U. of Texas at Austin * Presenter: Ethan Burris; U. of Texas at Austin * Benevolent Sexism in Workplace Feedback * Presenter: Ariella Kristal; Harvard Business School * Presenter: Michael Yeomans; Imperial College Business School * Relative Performance Feedback: Gendered Preferences and Asymmetric Costs * Presenter: Judy Qiu; London Business School * Presenter: Selin Selin Kesebir; London Business School [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Escalation of commitment costs businesses and taxpayers billions of dollars. Management research has consistently found that even in cases where future prospects look dire, decision makers routinely escalate commitment to failing courses of action. We draw on psychological research on self-presentation to argue that reputational considerations are a key driver of such escalation: leaders who de-escalate may fear, and in fact be, distrusted. In four pre-registered experiments with managers (N= 2,661), we demonstrate an effective way to de-escalate while maintaining trust: pre-specifying conditions for de-escalation (i.e., precommitment). In the presence of precommitment, third-party observers perceive de-escalators as having more integrity and are more likely to trust them in a behavioral economic game, compared to the absence of precommitment (Studies 1 and 2). Decision-makers themselves recognize how precommitment changes their reputational incentives: in the presence of this precommitment, managers are not only more likely to de-escalate (Study 3), but also anticipate that they will be perceived as being more trustworthy (Studies 3 and 4). This work contributes evidence to the underexplored idea that self-presentation motives influence escalation of commitment, and also provides a practical and costless solution leaders can implement. By harnessing precommitment, leaders can maintain trust when deciding to de-escalate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This symposium is designed to advance research on organizational communication by bringing together leading scholars examining state-of-the-art applications of natural language processing. Language is endemic to almost every aspect of an organization - we talk and write to each other all the time. However, the dominant paradigms for studying social interactions involves indirect measures of communication (surveys, network analyses, etc.). The presentations in this symposium demonstrate how that communication can be measured directly. Each presenter considers natural language data from common and difficult conversations throughout an organization. And in each case, natural language processing is used to show that the content of the communication has direct consequences for organizational outcomes. Across different field settings, we show how our analyses can also provide evidence for biases and information gaps that can inform behavioral models of decision-making in an organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this symposium, we bring together leading and emerging scholars to explore goal-achievement broadly with three of the papers focusing on commitment devices, as a way to better understand: (1) what motivates people effectively to overcome their self-control problems; (2) why people fail to use effective strategies to advance their own causes and goals, and (3) how we can encourage people to make better decisions that can lead to better outcomes in workplace contexts and beyond. Together, the papers in this symposium offer important empirical insights into how people can make decisions that improve their chances of achieving their goals. Practically, the collection of papers also provides managers and policymakers with field-tested interventions to increase goal-achievement. Motivation Myopia: Why We Overestimate Motivation's Impact on Performance. Presenter: Eliana Polimeni; Northwestern Kellogg School of Management. Presenter: Loran F. Nordgren; Northwestern U. Save More Today or Tomorrow: The Role of Urgency and Anticipated Emotion in Nudging Pre-Commitment. Presenter: Joseph Reiff; UCLA Anderson School of Management. Presenter: Hengchen Dai; U. of California, Los Angeles. Presenter: John Beshears; Harvard Business School. Presenter: Shlomo Benartzi; U. of California. Navigating pre-commitment: Effective strategies for others but appropriate strategies for the self. Presenter: Craig Brimhall; U. of Utah, David Eccles School of Business. Presenter: David Tannenbaum; U. of Utah, David Eccles School of Business. Presenter: Eric VanEpps; U. of Utah, David Eccles School of Business. The Cost of Opposition: Harming our Own Rather than Helping our Opponent. Presenter: Rachel Gershon; Rady School of Management, U. of California San Diego. Presenter: Ariel Fridman; Rady School of Management, U. of California San Diego. The Interpersonal Consequences of Commitment Device Use. Presenter: Ariella Kristal; Harvard Business School. Presenter: Julian Jake Zlatev; Harvard Business School. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Becoming a mother and taking care-related leaves from work contribute to economic gender inequality: Employers' gender role stereotypes ascribe mothers less qualification and ambition (i.e., agency), which are reinforced by employment gaps in their résumés. We integrate the judgment and decision-making literature to redesign mothers' résumés in a way that reduces mothers' barriers to work re-entry. More specifically, integrating signal detection theory, we theorize that by replacing employment dates with the number of years the applicant worked in each job, applicants can better convey their relevant professional abilities and ambition to employers (i.e., signals) without disclosing these distracting employment gaps (i.e., noise). In a large- scale randomized field experiment (N = 9,022), results showed that mothers with this redesigned résumé received more callbacks than those whose résumés showed employment dates. In an online experiment (N = 667), we replicated and extended these findings to show explicit evidence of our theorized mechanism: applicant agency. By integrating these literatures, we proposed and tested a cost-free, low-effort intervention to reduce inequality by reducing mothers' résumé gap- related agency penalties and facilitating their return to work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unethical practices in organizations have serious consequences for both corporations and society. The aim of the present symposium is to shed light on both when and why people behave in morally problematic ways in organizational contexts, so that management scholars and practitioners alike can better understand unethical behavior in organizations and devise interventions that deter such acts. How Loneliness at Work Leads to Unethical Behavior Via Distress Presenter: Wei Jee Ong; U. of Washington Presenter: Scott Reynolds; U. of Washington Signaling Virtuous Victimhood as a Resource Extraction Strategy Presenter: Ekin Ok; Sauder School of Business, U. of British Columbia Presenter: Brendan Strejcek; Sauder School of Business, U. of British Columbia Presenter: Yi Qian; Sauder School of Business, U. of British Columbia Presenter: Karl Aquino; U. of British Columbia Morality Shifting as an Explanation of Unethicality at Work Presenter: Siyin Chen; Rotman School of Management Presenter: Matthew Feinberg; Rotman School of Management The Power of Moral Concerns in Predicting Whistleblowing Decisions Presenter: James Dungan; U. of Chicago Booth School of business Presenter: Liane Young; Boston College Presenter: Adam Waytz; Northwestern Kellogg School of Management Revisiting a Signature Finding Presenter: Ariella Kristal; Harvard Business School Presenter: Francesca Gino; Harvard U. Presenter: Max H. Bazerman; Harvard U. Presenter: Dan Ariely; Fuqua School of Business Presenter: Nina Mazar; Boston U. Questrom School of Business Presenter: Lisa L. Shu; London Business School [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals often rely on other people, typically other members of their organization, for performance feedback. Unsurprisingly, decades of organizational research have been dedicated to understanding the determinants of effective feedback exchange. Yet, not much attention has been given to when, how, and why feedback givers may provide varying types of feedback that may be deemed as more or less helpful. Without understanding this crucial piece of the feedback exchange process ' feedback giving ' it would be impossible to promote effective feedback exchange. This symposium is designed to advance our understanding of feedback exchange from the giver's perspective by bringing together leading scholars examining various factors that affect feedback giving. By considering characteristics of the feedback giver, feedback recipient, and the feedback giving situation, this symposium is intended to provide a holistic view about the dynamics of feedback giving. Our presentations touch upon both a wide range of approaches of exploring the phenomenon of feedback giving, from empirical description to proposing and testing novel interventions. The presentations were also selected to exhibit the breadth of methodologies that are being applied to explore feedback giving. The papers include findings from surveys, archival field data, lab experiments, and field experiments. Together, these presentations propose theories and offer practical implications that will advance the collective understanding of this important workplace challenge. The program begins by considering how and why feedback givers provide input that may be considered as less helpful by their recipients. The next two presentations offer potential solutions for the various shortcomings of feedback identified earlier in the session. The symposium will conclude with an integrated discussion by Sue Ashford, who will comment on the papers, explore how they relate, and share her perspective on feedback giving. Kind or Candid? A Bias toward Kindness Goals in Feedback to Poorly Performing Women Presenter: Lily E. Jampol; London Business School The Detrimental Effects of High-Status Mentors: Formal Mentors' Relative Status and Mentee Turnover Presenter: Paul Isaac Green; U. of Texas, McCombs Presenter: Ting Zhang; Harvard Business School Presenter: Bradley R. Staats; U. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Presenter: Francesca Gino; Harvard U. Think or Feel before Delivering Feedback?: Perspective Taking & Empathy Result in Different Feedback Presenter: Kian Siong Tey; INSEAD Presenter: Elizabeth Baily Wolf; INSEAD Presenter: Roderick Ingmar Swaab; INSEAD Presenter: Michael Schaerer; Singapore Management U. Asking for Advice (vs. Feedback) Yields More Critical, Specific, and Actionable Input Presenter: Jaewon Yoon; Harvard Business School Presenter: Hayley Blunden; Harvard Business School Presenter: Ariella Kristal; Harvard Business School Presenter: Ashley Whillans; Harvard Business School [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]