We conducted a clustered randomized field experiment with 20 Brazilian distributorships of a multi-national direct sales organization to examine whether controlling failure perceptions through formal communications increases performance. We used the organization’s weekly sales meetings to deliver a video-based message from the regional head that either communicates workers should view failure as a natural part of learning rather than an indictment of their ability (treatment condition) or simply summarizes the organization’s history (control condition). We find that those who were assigned to the treatment condition were more likely to sustain their effort in response to economic adversity that coincided with our experiment. Additional analyses suggest that our treatment accomplished this by increasing job-specific confidence, and by reinforcing social norms that encourage workers to persevere after failure. Overall, our findings highlight that formal communications from senior management are a viable control mechanism for sustaining effort in the face of failure.

中文翻译：

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控制故障感知如何影响性能：来自现场实验的证据

我们与一家跨国直销组织的20个巴西分销商进行了集群的随机现场试验，以研究通过正式沟通控制失败观念是否会提高绩效。我们使用该组织的每周销售会议来传达来自地区负责人的基于视频的信息，该信息传达的信息是工人应该将失败视为学习的自然组成部分，而不是对其能力（治疗条件）的指示，或者只是总结组织的历史（控制）健康）状况）。我们发现那些被分配到治疗条件的人更有可能坚持自己的努力来应对与我们的实验相吻合的经济逆境。进一步的分析表明，我们的治疗方法通过提高针对特定工作的自信心来实现，通过加强鼓励工人在失败后坚持不懈的社会规范。总体而言，我们的发现突出表明，高级管理人员的正式沟通是在面对失败时保持努力的可行控制机制。