The Production of Merit: How Managers Understand and Apply Merit in the Workplace
Copyright: © 2020 INFORMS In this article, we develop a process model that specifies how managers come to understand and approach the evaluation of merit in the workplace. Interviews from a diverse sample of managers and from managers at a U.S. technology company, along with supplemental qualitative...
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)
2021
|
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135242 |
| _version_ | 1811075304596176896 |
|---|---|
| author | Castilla, Emilio J Ranganathan, Aruna |
| author2 | Sloan School of Management |
| author_facet | Sloan School of Management Castilla, Emilio J Ranganathan, Aruna |
| author_sort | Castilla, Emilio J |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Copyright: © 2020 INFORMS In this article, we develop a process model that specifies how managers come to understand and approach the evaluation of merit in the workplace. Interviews from a diverse sample of managers and from managers at a U.S. technology company, along with supplemental qualitative online review data, reveal that managers are not blank slates: we find that individuals' understandings of merit are shaped by their (positive and negative) experiences of being evaluated as employees prior to promotion to management. Our analysis also identifies two distinct managerial approaches to applying merit when evaluating others: the focused approach, in which managers evaluate employees' work actions quantitatively at the individual level; and the diffuse approach in which managers assess both employees' work actions and personal qualities, quantitatively and qualitatively, at both the individual and team levels. We further find that, as a result of their different past experiences as subjects of evaluation, individuals who experience mostly negative evaluation outcomes as employees are more likely to adopt a focused approach to evaluating merit, whereas individuals who experience mostly positive evaluation outcomes are more likely to adopt a diffuse approach. Our study contributes to the scholarship on meritocracy and workplace inequality by showing that merit is not an abstract concept but a guiding principle that is produced and reproduced over time based on individuals' evaluation experiences in the workplace. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:03:56Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/135242 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:03:56Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1352422023-12-13T21:23:56Z The Production of Merit: How Managers Understand and Apply Merit in the Workplace Castilla, Emilio J Ranganathan, Aruna Sloan School of Management Copyright: © 2020 INFORMS In this article, we develop a process model that specifies how managers come to understand and approach the evaluation of merit in the workplace. Interviews from a diverse sample of managers and from managers at a U.S. technology company, along with supplemental qualitative online review data, reveal that managers are not blank slates: we find that individuals' understandings of merit are shaped by their (positive and negative) experiences of being evaluated as employees prior to promotion to management. Our analysis also identifies two distinct managerial approaches to applying merit when evaluating others: the focused approach, in which managers evaluate employees' work actions quantitatively at the individual level; and the diffuse approach in which managers assess both employees' work actions and personal qualities, quantitatively and qualitatively, at both the individual and team levels. We further find that, as a result of their different past experiences as subjects of evaluation, individuals who experience mostly negative evaluation outcomes as employees are more likely to adopt a focused approach to evaluating merit, whereas individuals who experience mostly positive evaluation outcomes are more likely to adopt a diffuse approach. Our study contributes to the scholarship on meritocracy and workplace inequality by showing that merit is not an abstract concept but a guiding principle that is produced and reproduced over time based on individuals' evaluation experiences in the workplace. 2021-10-27T20:22:36Z 2021-10-27T20:22:36Z 2020 2021-04-02T13:55:38Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135242 en 10.1287/ORSC.2019.1335 Organization Science Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) other univ website |
| spellingShingle | Castilla, Emilio J Ranganathan, Aruna The Production of Merit: How Managers Understand and Apply Merit in the Workplace |
| title | The Production of Merit: How Managers Understand and Apply Merit in the Workplace |
| title_full | The Production of Merit: How Managers Understand and Apply Merit in the Workplace |
| title_fullStr | The Production of Merit: How Managers Understand and Apply Merit in the Workplace |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Production of Merit: How Managers Understand and Apply Merit in the Workplace |
| title_short | The Production of Merit: How Managers Understand and Apply Merit in the Workplace |
| title_sort | production of merit how managers understand and apply merit in the workplace |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135242 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT castillaemilioj theproductionofmerithowmanagersunderstandandapplymeritintheworkplace AT ranganathanaruna theproductionofmerithowmanagersunderstandandapplymeritintheworkplace AT castillaemilioj productionofmerithowmanagersunderstandandapplymeritintheworkplace AT ranganathanaruna productionofmerithowmanagersunderstandandapplymeritintheworkplace |