Preferences for Performance versus Potential in Promotion Recommendations

As high‐performing employees with high potential (or superstars) are rare in the workplace, practitioners often face a performance–potential trade‐off when deciding who to promote. We use regulatory focus theory as a framework to examine whether Canadian managers ( n = 58) and human resource (HR) professionals ( n = 121) show a preference for performance or potential when making near‐term promotion recommendations. We show that respondents...