The influence of employee-supervisor perfectionism (in)congruence on employees: a configurational approach

Abstract

Although performance standards and expectations at work are not solely self-determined, prior research on perfectionism has typically adopted an employee-centric approach, producing mixed empirical evidence. In this study, we adopt a role theory perspective to examine how the dyadic congruence and incongruence between employee and supervisor perfectionism impact employees at work. Specifically, integrating the perfectionism literature with tenets of role theory, we propose that higher congruence between an employee’s self-oriented perfectionism and their supervisor’s other-oriented perfectionism reduces role ambiguity, which in turn predicts higher job satisfaction, lower emotional exhaustion, and subsequently higher task performance. The incongruence effects were hypothesized to be asymmetric, such that the negative implications were stronger for low employee self-oriented perfectionism-high supervisor other-oriented perfectionism configurations (vs. high employee self-oriented perfectionism-low supervisor other-oriented perfectionism configurations). Results from analyses using multi-source time-lagged data from 357 employees and 98 supervisors suggest that the impact of employee perfectionism at work is better understood alongside consideration of supervisor other-oriented perfectionism, as supervisors are a critical source of evaluative standards and expectations shaping employee role perceptions in the workplace.