Multiple stakeholders' perceptions of critical attributes of a top performer: exploring the effects of congruency

Many IT jobs have multiple performance dimensions, requiring employees to perform several different functions. When job performance is multi-dimensional and difficult to measure objectively, employees are evaluated by subjective ratings of various traits, skills, and/or behaviors. Because IT professionals often interact with different functional groups within an organization, multiple stakeholders may evaluate their performance. This study examines the impact of congruity among different organizational stakeholders' prototypes of successful IT performers on job performance. The data was collected from a large international consulting firm. The results of this study support the hypotheses that congruence of stakeholder perceptions affects IT personnel performance. They also reinforce the frequently observed findings that performance positively affects job satisfaction while higher levels of job satisfaction leads to lower intention to turnover.