Experience, experience, experience: Too much of a good thing for executive performance

Abstract

Cumulative work experience is considered as a critical contributor to one's performance. However, Human Capital Theory and The Experience Trap propose seemingly contradictory perspectives regarding the work experience–performance relationship, and thereby calls for a means for integration. In this study, we investigated the relationship between cumulative experience and work performance using data generated from a comprehensive questionnaire and executive performance appraisals of 376 executives from a large business group in South Korea. By measuring work experience using multiple proxies (organizational tenure, executive tenure, and self-evaluated, cumulative work experience), we found that the association between experience and performance is not simply linear, but rather a curvilinear (inverted-U shaped). The time-lagged study design utilized across two time-points ensured the robustness of this finding. Interestingly, a closer look at the nature of the curvilinear relationship for organizational tenure and self-evaluated experience uncovered opposite trends, providing a multi-faceted understanding of the experience–performance relationship. Our findings challenge the conventional belief in the linear relationship between experience and performance, and call for a critical assessment of current human resources (HR) practices that heavily rely on work experience.