Interpersonal Attraction and Organizational Outcomes: A Field Examination

Abstract

The authors wish to thank Gary Albrecht, Jeanne Brett, David Dittman, and Barry Staw for their very helpful criticisms and suggestions during the early stages of this research. The authors also wish to thank theASQ reviewers and editorial staff for their valuable assistance. Objective evaluation is one of the basic tenets of rational administrative theory. However, it is widely recognized that several barriers exist to objective evaluation in practice. Informational social influence theory offers an auxiliary approach to understanding organizational outcomes. While informational social influence subsumes a wide variety of elements, three components were selected for examination from the social psychological literature on interpersonal attraction. The relationship of physical attractiveness, attitude similarity, and social background to performance ratings and salaries was examined at two public accounting firms. Motivation and ability measures were included to provide baselines for results. The data were consistentwith research suggesting that physical attractiveness may lead to higher outcomes but are less supportive of previous findings on attitude similarity and social background.