When success is not success: rethinking performance feedback through resource investment

We examine how performance relative to aspiration levels and resource-based expectations shapes organizational responses. Extending behavioral perspectives on performance feedback, we distinguish four conditions – validated success, inefficient success, resource-constrained failure, and inefficient failure. Using panel data from the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) League from 2001 to 2025, we analyse top management turnover and personnel reconfiguration. We find that inefficient failure has the strongest effect on top management turnover, but notably, inefficient success also increases turnover, indicating that meeting aspirations does not necessarily stabilize organizations when achieved with high resource investment. In contrast, personnel reconfiguration occurs only under inefficient failure, suggesting that organizations reserve deeper structural changes for the most severe performance conditions. These findings show that performance feedback depends not only on aspiration attainment but also on resource-based expectations, and that similar performance outcomes can lead to different organizational responses depending on how they are achieved.