Inferring Commitment from Rates of Organizational Transition

Organizations often implement changes that can signal their values. However, the most objectively efficient changes do not necessarily serve as the best signals. Across seven experiments, we investigate how different rates of transition influence people’s perceptions of how committed organizations are to the values underlying changes or improvements. We find that slower, less efficient transitions signal greater commitment compared with faster, more efficient transitions that reach otherwise identical endpoints (Experiment 1). Using mediation and moderation strategies, we demonstrate that this discontinuity occurs because people assume slower transitions require relatively more effort to enact (Experiments 2 and 3). Moreover, these commitment inferences persist beyond the point at which changes end (Experiment 4), when further improvement along the same dimension is no longer possible (Experiment 5), and regardless of whether the organization decided to transition either quickly or slowly (Experiment 6). This effect reverses, however, when people can directly compare slower and faster transitions that ultimately reach identical endpoints (Experiment 7). Taken together, these findings suggest that people often infer greater commitment from slower transitions that unfold over time, even when those transitions are objectively inferior to faster alternatives. Data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2980 . This paper was accepted by Yuval Rottenstreich, judgment and decision making.