Despite the clear theoretical link between promotions and job performance, the few studies that have tested this relationship have instead found that the role of job performance level in determining promotions is much less than might be expected. In 4 studies, we propose and test a different way of thinking about the performance-promotion relationship. Prospect theory, spiraling theory, and sponsored and contest mobility were used to support the notion that change in performance is at least as important to the prediction of promotion decisions as is absolute level of performance. In Study 1, performance and promotion data were collected for 563 white-collar employees at each of 4 time points spread over 6 years. As hypothesized, change in job performance significantly predicted change in workers' hierarchical level (i.e., promotion) beyond previous performance level. In Study 2, we found that upward trends are associated with ratings of future performance expectation and promotability through their effects on attributions of conscientiousness, proactive personality, and job dedication. In Study 3, we replicated the findings of Study 2 and found no evidence of a performance trend by performance level interaction. In Study 4, we showed that those with upward trends are preferred even to those with performance that is consistent and strong. Taken together, our results suggest that the reason for the modest performance-promotion relationships found in previous research may be that performance trends are seen by decision makers as containing at least as much promotion-relevant information as do performance averages or recent performance levels. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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你来自哪里，你要去哪里：绩效轨迹在晋升决策中的作用。

尽管升职与工作绩效之间存在明显的理论联系，但少数检验这种关系的研究却发现，工作绩效水平在决定升职方面的作用远低于预期。在 4 项研究中，我们提出并测试了一种不同的思考绩效-晋升关系的方式。前景理论、螺旋理论以及赞助和竞赛流动性被用来支持这样一种观点，即绩效的变化对于晋升决策的预测至少与绩效的绝对水平一样重要。在研究 1 中，收集了 563 名白领员工在 6 年内的 4 个时间点中的每一个的绩效和晋升数据。正如假设的那样，工作绩效的变化显着预测了工人等级水平的变化（即，晋升）超出了之前的表现水平。在研究 2 中，我们发现上升趋势通过对责任心、积极主动的个性和工作奉献的归因的影响与未来绩效预期和晋升的评级相关。在研究 3 中，我们复制了研究 2 的结果，但没有发现绩效水平交互作用的绩效趋势证据。在研究 4 中，我们表明那些具有上升趋势的人甚至比那些表现稳定和强劲的人更受欢迎。综上所述，我们的结果表明，先前研究中发现的绩效与晋升关系适度的原因可能是决策者认为绩效趋势包含的与晋升相关的信息至少与绩效平均值或最近的绩效水平一样多。