Knowledge that Transforms

There are multiple views in human resource management and organizational behavior concerning gender differences in measures of job performance. Some researchers suggest that males generally are evaluated higher than females across a variety of situations that include job performance measurement. At the same time, the presence of specific status cues in expectation states theory (EST; similar to the concept of individuating information) suggests that measures of job performance will be more similar than different for males and females. Previous analyses are unclear in their results for the measurement of the construct of job performance because they have included, and/or focused on, additional constructs (e.g., hiring suitability, leadership performance aggregated with leadership satisfaction) or have used student samples in lab experiments. The authors of this article conducted a meta-analysis of job performance measures from field studies. They found that females generally scored slightly higher than males (mean d = −.11, 80% credibility interval of −.33 to .12). Other analyses suggested that, although job performance ratings favored females, ratings of promotion potential were higher for males. Thus, ratings of promotability may deserve further attention as a potential source of differential promotion rates. These findings and processes are discussed within the context of EST.

Although leader-member exchange (LMX) was identified in the literature nearly 40 years ago, a comprehensive empirical examination of its antecedents and consequences has not been conducted. The authors’ examination included 247 studies, containing 290 samples, and 21 antecedents and 16 consequences of LMX quality. Results indicated that while leader behaviors and perceptions, follower characteristics, interpersonal relationship characteristics, and contextual variables represent significant groups of LMX antecedents, leader variables explained the most variance in LMX quality. Moderator analyses revealed that the particular LMX scale, country of participants, and work setting studied did not produce meaningful influences on the relationships in the meta-analysis. However, power distance and individualism did moderate some of these relationships. To provide continuity with the LMX meta-analyses and conceptual reviews that have focused on LMX consequences, the authors tested a number of mediation models. The results demonstrated that LMX frequently plays a mediating role in the relationships where mediation could be tested.