Searching near and far? Search distance and performance below historical and social aspirations

Performance management systems generate feedback intended to guide public managers toward performance improvement. A central but underexplored question is where public managers search for information to generate solutions when performance falls below aspiration levels. This study employs a three-dimensional conceptualization of information search, distinguishing a disciplinary, spatial, and temporal dimension, to examine how performance below historical and social aspiration levels affects decision-makers’ search distance. Drawing on learning theory, we propose that historical aspiration levels direct search locally through experiential learning, while social aspiration levels direct search distantly through vicarious learning. We test these hypotheses with a pre-registered between-subjects survey experiment among 691 managers in Belgian local governments, using a cycling safety scenario. Results reveal a consistent individual-level preference for local search across all experimental groups. This preference is most pronounced in the disciplinary dimension, indicating that public managers strongly favor discipline-congruent information sources. Performance below historical or social aspiration levels does not significantly alter search distance. These findings suggest that the link between performance feedback and search distance may be weaker in public sector contexts than behavioral theory anticipates. We discuss implications for performance management theory and practice, and outline avenues for future research on search behavior in public organizations.