Interactions of learners and competitors with stars and implications for firm performance

Abstract

Research about the influence of a star employee on her colleagues has taken a star-centric view and presented conflicting findings. We reconcile these findings by shifting focus to non-stars. Contrary to prior research, we assume that non- stars are heterogeneous. We classify them into learners and competitors based on performance vis-à-vis stars. Using data from the National Basketball Association, we find that with more stars in the organization, the performance of learners improves. The performance of competitors depends on experience. Junior competitors improve while senior competitors do worse. The learning and competitive mechanisms jointly lead to an inverted U-shaped relationship between the ratio of learners to competitors and organizational performance. This study contributes to the micro-foundations of strategy by calling attention to the less- privileged non-stars.