Experience as a Double‐Edged Sword: The Relationship Between Prior Management Experience and Job Performance
| Published date | 01 April 2023 |
| Author | Malay N. Desai |
| Date | 01 April 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12622 |
British Journal of Management, Vol. 34, 727–745 (2023)
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12622
Experience as a Double-Edged Sword: The
Relationship Between Prior Management
Experience and Job Performance
Malay N. Desai
Nottingham University Business School, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG8 1BB, UK
Corresponding author email: malay.desai@nottingham.ac.uk
The inter-rm mobility of managers is a common feature in modern-day employment,
yet the understanding of the relationship between prior management experience and per-
formance remains ambiguous in the literature. The received wisdom suggests that prior
management experience will haveeither a positive or a negative inuence on performance,
highlighting the positive role of novice managers or managers with expertise. In contrast,
this study views these perspectives as being complementary, and suggests that a positive
and negative effect of experience can operate concurrently with the levelof prior manage-
ment experience. Using a domain-expertise lens, this study nds a curvilinear U-shaped
relationship between the level of prior management experience and performance, which
implies that both novice and highly experienced managers havea positive effect on perfor-
mance. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that the curvilinear U-shaped relationship
is more pronounced when prior management experience is moreclosely related to the fo-
cal job. The main contribution of this study is to reconcile some of the ambiguity in the
literature by providing a nuanced conceptualization of how and why prior management
experience impacts performance.
Introduction
Firms increasingly look to hire experienced man-
agers in key areas of their operations due to an en-
during sense that prior experience is consequential
for job performance (henceforth, performance).
The relationship between prior management
experience and performance, however, remains
a puzzle for scholars and practitioners. Several
studies demonstrate that relevant prior experience
contributes to better performance by enhancing
individuals’ human capital in terms of knowl-
edge, skills and abilities (Bailey and Helfat, 2003;
McEnrue, 1988). Yet, other researchers highlight
cognitive and behavioural challenges that individ-
uals face when transferring prior experience,which
leads to a negative effect on performance (Dokko
and Jiang, 2017; Hamori and Koyuncu, 2015). A
corresponding body of research from practice at-
tests to a negative effect of relevant experience and
illuminates the implications for the hiring and de-
velopment of managers (Hildebrand, Anterasian
and Brugg, 2020; Sengupta, Abdel-Hamid and
Van Wassenhove, 2008). Due to these inconsistent
theoretical arguments and empirical results, the
relationship between prior management experi-
ence and performance is not fully understood and
necessitates a better conceptualization.
The understanding of the relationship between
prior management experience and performance
is located in the literature that discusses the
portability of job-specic experience across rm
boundaries (Bailey and Helfat, 2003; Dokko,Wilk
and Rothbard, 2009; Dokko and Jiang, 2017;
Ellis, 1965). Whilst research has generally treated
the implications of the negative and positive effect
of prior job-specic experience on performance
as being contradictory, I suggest that both ef-
fects could instead be complementary because
they may jointly offer a more comprehensive
© 2022 The Authors.British Journal of Management published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Academy
of Management.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distri-
bution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properlycited.
728 M. N. Desai
conceptualization of the inuence of prior man-
agement experience on performance. To explore
this possibility,I draw upon the expertise literature
and conceptualize prior management experience
in line with Dane’s (2010) schema-based notion
of domain expertise, dened as deeper levels of
domain-specic knowledge acquired through ex-
perience. On the basis that expertise is assumed
to vary in direct proportion to experience (Graf-
Vlachy, Bundy and Hambrick, 2020; Reuber,
1997), Dane (2010) suggests that whilst expertise
can grow with the level of domain experience, so
can a cognitive inexibility effect, which operates
to increase commitment to individuals’ domain-
specic knowledge and reduce new learning. As
such, the domain-expertise perspective enables the
consideration of both a positive and a negative
effect of individuals’ prior job-specic experience
on performance.
Using the domain-expertise lens, I suggest that
an inexibility effect, in terms of the negative ef-
fect of prior management experience on perfor-
mance, will become particularly pronounced up
to some threshold of prior management experi-
ence. The core argument is that such managers
are most likely to rely on their experience when
moving to another job because of their belief in
their expertise, which is problematic because these
managers still require further learning to master
the management role (Haleblian and Finkelstein,
1999; Sengupta, Abdel-Hamid and Van Wassen-
hove,2008). However, the expertise effect,in ter ms
of the positive effect of prior management ex-
perience on performance, is expected to manifest
beyond some threshold of prior management ex-
perience because of the time it can take to develop
expertise (Dane,2010). Accordingly, I propose that
the relationship between prior management expe-
rience and performance may not be linear, as much
of the literature has assumed, and may instead be
curvilinear and U-shaped – initially negative and
then positive beyondsome threshold of prior man-
agement experience.
Furthermore, this study explores the moder-
ating role of the relatedness of managers’ prior
experience to the focal job, which is an im-
portant contingency indicated in the learning
transfer and expertise literatures (Dane, 2010;
Hamori and Koyuncu, 2015). Findings of this
study suggest that managers with higher amounts
of closely related prior experience exhibit a
more pronounced U-shaped relationship. These
relationships are examined using data on the
population of English Premier League football
teams (1996–2019), an empirical context that
is conducive to validating better the relation-
ship between managers’ experience and perfor-
mance (see ‘Data and methods’ section). As
managers are assessed by the performance of
their teams, their job performance is the team’s
performance.
The contributions of this study are threefold.
First, this study contributes to the reconciliation
of the theoretical and empirical inconsistency in
the literature about the relationship between prior
management experience and performance by de-
veloping a nuanced theoretical explanation based
on Dane’s (2010) schema-based notion of domain
expertise. In demonstrating that both a positive
and a negative effect of prior management ex-
perience can accrue concurrently, yet at different
rates with the level of experience, this study deep-
ens understanding of how and why prior manage-
ment experience can enhance/hinder performance
(Dokko and Jiang, 2017; Reuber, 1997). Second,
and relatedly, the ndings enrich Dane’s (2010)
work by empirically examining the complex in-
terplay between expertise and inexibility, high-
lighting important conditions in which one effect
dominates the other. Finally, this research offers
practical implications by underscoring key consid-
erations in the hiring and development of experi-
enced managers.
The portability of job-specic
experience across rm boundaries
The prior experience of individuals is a key cri-
terion used by rms when making appointments
because experience is considered to promote bet-
ter decision-making and performance (Rynes,
Orlitzky and Bretz, 1997; Sengupta, Abdel-Hamid
and Van Wassenhove, 2008). Firms will typically
seek individuals with job-specic experience,
whose prior experience is related to the character-
istics of the focal job, and expect them to become
immediately productive (Bailey and Helfat, 2003;
Dokko,Wilk and Rothbard, 2009; Qui´
nones, Ford
and Teachout, 1995; Sengupta, Abdel-Hamid and
Van Wassenhove, 2008). As a result, there is an
increasing expectation that experienced individ-
uals will demonstrate comparable performance
and impact from their prior jobs in their current
© 2022 The Authors.British Journal of Management published by John Wiley& Sons L tdon behalf of British
Academy of Management.
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