Interactions of learners and competitors with stars and the implications for organizational performance

Abstract

Prior research presents conflicting findings about a star employee’s influence on her colleagues. We reconcile these findings by shifting the focus from stars to non-stars. Contrary to prior research that treats non-stars as homogenous, we argue that they are heterogeneous. We classify them into learners and competitors and argue that social comparison processes underlie their interaction with stars. Using data from the National Basketball Association, we find that the presence of stars in the organization improves the performance of learners. The change in performance of competitors depends on experience. With senior stars in the organization, junior competitors improve while senior competitors do worse. We also argue that the learning and competitive mechanisms jointly lead to an inverted U-shaped relationship between the ratio of learners to competitors and organizational performance. This study contributes to the micro-foundations of strategy by calling attention to the less-celebrated nonstars in organizations.