This study provides a meta-analysis on the relationships between organizational tenure and three broad classes of job behaviors: core-task behaviors, citizenship behaviors, and counterproductive behaviors. Across 350 empirical studies with a cumulative sample size of 249,841, the authors found that longer tenured employees generally have greater in-role performance and citizenship performance. It is interesting that organizational tenure was also positively related to some counterproductive behaviors (e.g., aggressive behavior and nonsickness absence). Most of these relationships remain statistically significant even after controlling for the effects of chronological age. The authors also observed that the tenure—performance relationship was stronger for younger workers, for women, for non-Caucasians, and for college-educated workers. Finally, the authors found evidence of a curvilinear relationship between organizational tenure and job performance. Although the relationship of organizational tenure with job performance is positive in general, the strength of the association decreases as organizational tenure increases.

To move beyond the current emphasis on voice level or quantity in voice research, it is important to consider the effects of making suggestions that others view as poor quality. Guided by sociometer theory, we propose that voice quality affects workplace ostracism: The coworker may see the employee who makes bad suggestions as incompetent, which results in the employee being ostracized. The employee’s ostracism experience matters because it may not only result in the employee’s self-perception of poor voice quality but may also lead the employee to rate the coworker’s suggestions more harshly. In a field study over 6 weeks (294 employee-coworker dyads) and two vignette experiments (401 subjects), we found support for this sociometer view of voice quality. Thus, this study makes an important contribution to voice research by highlighting the quality dimension of voice. Employees who hope to effect change through their voice should monitor whether the quality of their suggestions will be judged favorably or unfavorably by their coworkers to avoid being ostracized.