The Double-edged Sword Effect Of Performance Comparison On Employee Behavior: Mechanism And Boundary

What kind of emotional and behavioral response will people have when they perceive that other colleagues perform better than themselves(upward performance comparison).Some studies believe that the upward performance comparison in the organization can motivate the comparator to pursue higher goals and improve themselves.However,a large number of studies have found that upward performance comparison will make the comparator have negative emotions,and then reduce the comparator’s self-evaluation and job performance.In order to more fully understand the impact of upward performance in the organization on employees,based on the social comparison theory,this study proposes the double-edged sword effect of performance comparison on employee behavior.It believes that the upward performance comparison in organizations can make the comparators admire the high performers,and then learn from them to improve themselves;It may also create a sense of threat for the comparator,leading to destructive behavior towards high performers,such as social undermining.And these two different impacts are moderated by the level of high performers.Specifically,when high performers are the superiors of the comparator,the comparator is more likely to admire them and learn from them;When high performers are peers or subordinates of the comparator,the comparator is more likely to feel threatened and engage in social undermining.Combining an experiment based on 277 on-the-job employees and an experiment based on 194 on-the-job enterprise managers,this study draws the following conclusions.First of all,the performance comparison in the organization has a doubleedged sword effect.In terms of negative effects,the upward performance comparison will make employees feel threatened,and then leads to social undermining behavior towards high performers;In terms of positive effects,the upward performance comparison will make employees feel admired,thus promoting their learning behavior towards high performers.Secondly,the level of high performers has a moderating effect on this double-edged sword effect.On this point,consistent with our hypothesis,the level of high performers does moderated the impact of upward performance comparisons on employees’ social undermine through perceived threats,but the moderating effect of high performer level on the path of upward performance comparison affecting learning behavior through admiration is not established.This study elaborates on the double-edged sword effect of upward performance comparison on employee behavior in organizations from the perspective of social comparison,which is beneficial for enriching relevant research in the field of performance comparison and employee behavior.At the same time,it provides new ideas for enterprises and their managers on how to correctly view and manage highperformance employees in organizations.