Topic: Citizenship Behaviors, Counter-Productive Work Behavior, Job Performance
Publication: Journal
of Management (SEP)
Article: Organizational tenure and job performance
Authors: T.W.H.
Ng and D.C. Feldman
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger
It is
often intuited that employees who remain in an organization longer gain more
knowledge of their job and the organization and thus perform at a higher level
than employees with less tenure.
Indeed, it’s no secret that organizational tenure is common factor
considered in administrative decisions such as offering promotions and awarding
raises and other fringe benefits (e.g., pensions, vacation days). For many of us, anecdotal evidence
probably confirms the assumption that as tenure within the organization
increases, so does performance.
But what does the research say?
In a recent
meta-analysis of the relationship between organizational tenure and job
performance, Ng and Feldman (2010) combined data from 350 studies which
included nearly 250,000 research participants. Not surprisingly, the authors expected that organizational
tenure would be favorably related to various forms of job performance. Their findings generally confirmed that
organizational tenure is favorably
associated with performance. However,
the relationships between tenure and performance was quite weak overall.
While
there was modest positive association between organizational tenure and task
performance and organizational citizenship behaviors, the benefit of tenure
appears to drop as tenure increases.
In fact, Ng and Feldman showed that tenure best predicts performance between
3 and 6 years within an organization.
After about 14 years, tenure is completely unrelated to task performance.
Citizenship behaviors, on the
other hand, are best predicted by tenure in the first three years of employment
and much like task performance, this relationship drops over time.
Additionally,
while increased organizational tenure was associated with fewer unsafe practices
and injuries on the job, increased tenure was also associated with increased
workplace aggression (self-rated) and self-rated substance use. These latter findings were contrary to
Ng and Feldman’s expectations but clearly suggest that organizational tenure is
not necessarily beneficial across the board.
While the
findings of this extensive meta-analysis generally support organizational
practices that reward tenure, tenure is clearly NOT “the silver bullet” when it
comes to job performance. It is
important to stress again that many of the relationships between organizational
tenure and performance are quite weak.
Indeed, there are numerous other factors that contribute to job performance
more so than the amount of time an employee remains in an organization (e.g.,
cognitive ability, conscientiousness).
Nevertheless, tenure does appear to influence performance on the job,
especially early on in employees’ careers.
What were the actual correlation values? (if you have them)
Thanks for your question Bryan!
Sample size weighted correlation coefficients are presented in paper, but do not control for age which was highly related to organizational tenure (r = .70).
The authors draw heavily upon the results of regression analyses that controlled for age. The standardized regression weights between tenure and the various performance outcomes are included below:
Overall, in-role performance (task performance) = .09
Overall unsafe behaviors = -.15
Overall Organizational citizenship behaviors = .05
Overall counterproductive work behaviors = .02
Self-rated aggression = .13
self-rated substance use = .08
It is important to note that there is lots more “meat” in the actual article if this article is of interest to you.
One of the things I’ve seen in data we’ve acquired is that tenure is associated with declining perceptions of fairness in many areas. My sense is that, as one might predict by a referrent cognitions view, increased tenure allows for the accumulation of more counter-examples in the employee’s knowledge base of what the organization/supervisor COULD have done instead in such and such a situation. Basically, the “water cooler talk” adds up over time, such that it becomes harder and harder for any organizational action to meet the individual employee’s criteria for “fair” action.
We, unfortunately, have not been able to drill down in detail, since the data I speak of was not acquired for this particular purpose, but we generally see a substantive drop in perceived fairness or satisfaction with organizational actions after 3 years tenure.
The implication is that, while you would think that tenure ought to be associated with steady increments in performance, that may potentially be moderated by decrements in motivation, or even actively withholding optimum effort, in response to declining trust and perceived fairness.
Of course, not all employees become disaffected over time/tenure, or to the same extent. I guess the next step for Ng and Feldman is to look at perceived fairness and trust over tenure, and see if the anticipated increment in performance occurs only when, or is stronger when, accompanied by higher perceived fairness and trust in management.
Great comment. Would love to see the authors thoughts on it.
Wow, you might say that the technology is very good! Photo, so beautiful, very clear, wish you good luck, create the future together! And I share my blog http://www.shirts-sneakers.com/