{"id":7059,"date":"2026-07-21T16:28:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T14:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eaa-online.org\/arc\/?p=7059"},"modified":"2026-07-21T16:28:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T14:28:20","slug":"the-last-signal-wins-what-professional-tennis-can-teach-us-about-performance-feedback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eaa-online.org\/arc\/blog\/2026\/07\/21\/the-last-signal-wins-what-professional-tennis-can-teach-us-about-performance-feedback\/","title":{"rendered":"The Last Signal Wins: What Professional Tennis Can Teach Us about Performance Feedback"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Why the Latest Performance Signal Matters<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">Consider two employees with similar overall performance. One initially performs below colleagues but subsequently improves and receives positive recent performance information. The other starts strongly but receives negative information about their latest results. Although their cumulative performance may be comparable, is their subsequent performance likely to be the same?<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">In our forthcoming article in <em>European Accounting Review<\/em>, we examine how individuals perform after receiving contradictory performance signals. Drawing on recency theory, we predict that subsequent performance is more strongly associated with the latest signal. We test this prediction using more than 29,000 professional tennis matches in which players receive opposing performance signals before a deciding set. This setting allows us to observe individuals in the same overall position but arriving there after either a recent success or setback.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">We find that a recent positive signal is associated with better subsequent performance than a recent negative signal. However, this relationship varies with the signal\u2019s informativeness and the recipient\u2019s characteristics. The recency relationship is weaker among individuals with characteristics associated with higher self-efficacy. We also document different patterns among men and women. Women tend to underperform following unexpected positive signals, consistent with choking under pressure, whereas men perform worse following recent setbacks, consistent with the Golem effect.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">These findings have implications for performance-information systems. Managers should consider not only the information provided but also its sequence, timing and informativeness. The most recent signal may have a particularly strong association with employees\u2019 motivation and subsequent performance. Moreover, these relationships are unlikely to be uniform across employees. Understanding differences in confidence, experience and responses to pressure may therefore be important when interpreting the relationship between performance information and subsequent performance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Reference:<\/strong><\/p>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-US\">Aranda, C., Arellano, J., &amp; D\u00e1vila, A. (2026) The last signal wins: How recent performance information shapes subsequent performance under contradictory signals. Forthcoming in <i>European Accounting Review<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why the Latest Performance Signal Matters Consider two employees with similar overall performance. One initially performs below colleagues but subsequently improves and receives positive recent performance information. The other starts strongly but receives negative information about their latest results. Although their cumulative performance may be comparable, is their subsequent performance likely to be the same? [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1585,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,260],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ear","category-research"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Last Signal Wins: What Professional Tennis Can Teach Us about Performance Feedback - ARC<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/eaa-online.org\/arc\/blog\/2026\/07\/21\/the-last-signal-wins-what-professional-tennis-can-teach-us-about-performance-feedback\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Last Signal Wins: What Professional Tennis Can Teach Us about Performance Feedback - ARC\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Why the Latest Performance Signal Matters Consider two employees with similar overall performance. 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