Shadows and shields: Stars limit their collaborators’ exposure to attributions of both credit and blame

• Published in: Personnel psychology Vol. 74; no. 3; pp. 573 - 610
• Main Authors: Kehoe, Rebecca R., Bentley, F. Scott
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Durham Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.09.2021
• Subjects: attribution theory; Collaboration; failure; Professional Recognition; signaling theory; star performers; status; Success
• DOI: 10.1111/peps.12436
• ISSN: 0031-5826

Building on the notion of cumulative advantage, we undertake a nuanced examination of how collaborating with a star affects attributions of credit and blame to nonstars in collaborative endeavors. Situating our inquiry in the US hedge fund industry, we hypothesize two‐way interactions predicting that collaboration with a star comanager will weaken both the positive effect of comanaged fund success and the negative effect of comanaged fund failure on nonstar managers’ professional status attainment (i.e., the status of a manager's subsequent employing firm). Specifically, we argue that the involvement of a star comanager will weaken prospective employers’ attributions for positive or negative performance to a focal nonstar manager, due to presumptions of the star's disproportionate influence in collaborative decisions. We then theorize a series of three‐way interactions specifying the roles of other signals of a nonstar manager's competence in this process. More precisely, we argue that a nonstar's performance outside the collaborative context and the status of the nonstar's current employer will weaken the dampening effect of comanaging with a star in the context of success and strengthen the favorable, blame‐reducing effect of comanaging with a star in the context of failure. Therefore, we suggest that nonstars who can signal their competence with these independent status signals will achieve greater professional status attainment than will those lacking such signals following both collaborative success and collaborative failure with a star. Our primary analyses support our hypotheses, while our supplementary analyses offer corroborative support for theorized mechanisms and evidence to address alternative explanations.