IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ororsc/v23y2012i2p373-385.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rating Performance or Contesting Status: Evidence Against the Homophily Explanation for Supervisor Demographic Skew in Performance Ratings

Author

Listed:
  • Jone L. Pearce

    (The Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California 92697)

  • Qiumei Jane Xu

    (College of Business and Management, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, Illinois 60625)

Abstract

We propose and test an argument in which the well-documented skew in supervisory performance appraisal ratings toward those with the same demography as themselves is better explained by the status contests than the reigning theory of homophily. We conduct the test in a field study of 358 supervisor–subordinate dyads in 10 organizations, using hierarchical linear modeling with various controls. We find that supervisors' ratings of subordinates' contextual and task performance only skew toward similar subordinates when supervisors' status is contested by a higher demographic status subordinate, as predicted by social dominance and status characteristics theories. None of the general homophily preference hypotheses is supported. This study provides a richer theory more consistent with the accumulating evidence about demography effects in organizations and demonstrates the value of head-to-head strong inference tests and status explanations for the field of organizational behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Jone L. Pearce & Qiumei Jane Xu, 2012. "Rating Performance or Contesting Status: Evidence Against the Homophily Explanation for Supervisor Demographic Skew in Performance Ratings," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 373-385, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:23:y:2012:i:2:p:373-385
    DOI: 10.1287/orsc.1100.0585
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1100.0585
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/orsc.1100.0585?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard A. D'Aveni & Idalene F. Kesner, 1993. "Top Managerial Prestige, Power and Tender Offer Response: A Study of Elite Social Networks and Target Firm Cooperation during Takeovers," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 4(2), pages 123-151, May.
    2. Steven L. Blader & Ya-Ru Chen, 2011. "What Influences How Higher-Status People Respond to Lower-Status Others? Effects of Procedural Fairness, Outcome Favorability, and Concerns About Status," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(4), pages 1040-1060, August.
    3. Prithviraj Chattopadhyay & Elizabeth George & Arthur D. Shulman, 2008. "The Asymmetrical Influence of Sex Dissimilarity in Distributive vs. Colocated Work Groups," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(4), pages 581-593, August.
    4. Judith D. Singer, 1998. "Using SAS PROC MIXED to Fit Multilevel Models, Hierarchical Models, and Individual Growth Models," Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, , vol. 23(4), pages 323-355, December.
    5. Chen, Ya-Ru & Brockner, Joel & Greenberg, Jerald, 2003. "When is it "a pleasure to do business with you?" The effects of relative status, outcome favorability, and procedural fairness," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 92(1-2), pages 1-21.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fang Shuai, 2019. "Homophily Exclusion or Homophily Preference? The Influence of the Executive Identity of Nonexecutive Directors on the Focal Firm Executive Pay and Ordinary Employee Pay," Journal of Systems Science and Information, De Gruyter, vol. 7(6), pages 550-567, December.
    2. van Hoorn, Andr, 2016. "How are migrant employees manages? An integrated analysis," Research Report 16001-GEM, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    3. Gokhan Ertug & Martin Gargiulo & Charles Galunic & Tengjian Zou, 2018. "Homophily and Individual Performance," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(5), pages 912-930, October.
    4. Christopher C. Rosen & D. Lance Ferris & Douglas J. Brown & Yuanyi Chen & Ming Yan, 2014. "Perceptions of Organizational Politics: A Need Satisfaction Paradigm," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(4), pages 1026-1055, August.
    5. Ya-Ru Chen & Randall S. Peterson & Damon J. Phillips & Joel M. Podolny & Cecilia L. Ridgeway, 2012. "Introduction to the Special Issue: Bringing Status to the Table—Attaining, Maintaining, and Experiencing Status in Organizations and Markets," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 299-307, April.
    6. Balazs Szatmari & Dirk Deichmann & Jan van den Ende & Brayden G. King, 2021. "Great Successes and Great Failures: The Impact of Project Leader Status on Project Performance and Performance Extremeness," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(5), pages 1267-1293, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Li, Weiwen & Lu, Yuan & Makino, Shige & Lau, Chung-Ming, 2017. "National power distance, status incongruence, and CEO dismissal," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 52(6), pages 809-818.
    2. Koopman, Joel & Matta, Fadel K. & Scott, Brent A. & Conlon, Donald E., 2015. "Ingratiation and popularity as antecedents of justice: A social exchange and social capital perspective," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 132-148.
    3. Anne M. Wilkins & Dana R. Hermanson & Jeffrey R. Cohen, 2016. "Do Compensation Committee Members Perceive Changing CEO Incentive Performance Targets Mid-Cycle to be Fair?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 137(3), pages 623-638, September.
    4. Fang Shuai, 2019. "Homophily Exclusion or Homophily Preference? The Influence of the Executive Identity of Nonexecutive Directors on the Focal Firm Executive Pay and Ordinary Employee Pay," Journal of Systems Science and Information, De Gruyter, vol. 7(6), pages 550-567, December.
    5. Michelle M. Duguid & Denise Lewin Loyd & Pamela S. Tolbert, 2012. "The Impact of Categorical Status, Numeric Representation, and Work Group Prestige on Preference for Demographically Similar Others: A Value Threat Approach," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 386-401, April.
    6. Deka, Devajyoti, 2012. "The impacts of non-resident parking restrictions at commuter rail stations," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 451-461.
    7. Mohammed Kamruzzaman & Sunan Islam, 2021. "Correlating the diversity awareness within the organizations of Bangladesh in the era of industry 4.0-Human resource perspective," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 5(09), pages 83-97, September.
    8. Jake G. Messersmith & Jeong-Yeon Lee & James P. Guthrie & Yong-Yeon Ji, 2014. "Turnover at the Top: Executive Team Departures and Firm Performance," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(3), pages 776-793, June.
    9. Elberse, Anita & Anand, Bharat, 2007. "The effectiveness of pre-release advertising for motion pictures: An empirical investigation using a simulated market," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 19(3-4), pages 319-343, October.
    10. Luís Aguiar-Conraria & Pedro C. Magalhães, 2018. "Procedural Fairness, the Economy, and Support for Political Authorities (Forthcoming at Political Psychology (submitted pre-print version))," NIPE Working Papers 05/2018, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    11. Ferris, Stephen P. & Jayaraman, Narayanan & Liao, Min-Yu (Stella), 2020. "Better directors or distracted directors? An international analysis of busy boards," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 44(C).
    12. Y. Fassin & D. Gossselin, 2011. "The collapse of a European bank in the financial crisis: an analysis from strategic, stakeholder, ethical and governance perspectives," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 11/726, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    13. D. G. DeBoskey & Yan Luo & Linying Zhou, 2019. "CEO power, board oversight, and earnings announcement tone," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 657-680, February.
    14. Wrage, Markus & Tuschke, Anja & Bresser, Rudi K. F., 2011. "The influence of social capital on CEO dismissal in Germany: an empirical analysis," Discussion Papers 2011/5, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    15. Mohd Irfan, 2011. "The role of executives in hostile takeover attempts," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 6(1), pages 29-40, May.
    16. Sora Kang & Kai H. Lim & Min Soo Kim & Hee-Dong Yang, 2012. "Research Note ---A Multilevel Analysis of the Effect of Group Appropriation on Collaborative Technologies Use and Performance," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 23(1), pages 214-230, March.
    17. Yves Fassin & Derrick Gosselin, 2011. "The Collapse of a European Bank in the Financial Crisis: An Analysis from Stakeholder and Ethical Perspectives," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 102(2), pages 169-191, August.
    18. Peter Z. Schochet, "undated". "Statistical Power for Random Assignment Evaluations of Education Programs," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 6749d31ad72d4acf988f7dce5, Mathematica Policy Research.
    19. Zalata, Alaa Mansour & Tauringana, Venancio & Tingbani, Ishmael, 2018. "Audit committee financial expertise, gender, and earnings management: Does gender of the financial expert matter?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 170-183.
    20. Maitixirepu Jilili & Aliya Aini, 2023. "Examining the Moderating Effect of Occupational Status on the Association of Organizational Justice and Job Satisfaction," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 97-111, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:23:y:2012:i:2:p:373-385. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.