Self-monitoring and job performance: Substance or style? A meta-analysis

Abstract

Self-monitoring aims at adjusting one's behaviour in social interactions. While scholars have been convinced that self-monitoring predicts job performance, the strength and nature of the relationship between self-monitoring and job performance remain unclear. Specifically, it may not be explained by a competency perspective but rather a biased-perceiver perspective, where self-monitors may primarily succeed in influencing raters' perceptions of their performance. Therefore, a meta-analysis was conducted, identifying 35 samples that reported the respective correlations. The results reveal a modest overall relationship (r = .12). Importantly, moderator analyses suggest that this relationship is driven by self-monitors influencing supervisors' performance ratings. Likewise, a correlation between self-monitoring and job performance was observed only in supervisor ratings, but not in performance assessments based on outcome measures, and the relationship was evident in ratings of contextual performance, but not of task performance. These findings tend to support a biased-perceiver perspective, suggesting that self-monitoring is more strongly related to impression formation than to actual job performance, though the magnitudes of moderator effects are modest, and residual heterogeneity in the data remains considerable. The modest relationship between self-monitoring and job performance thus appears to be more about style (biased performance ratings) than substance (contributing to actual job performance).