Exploring the Relationship Between Stars and Team Performance: The Mediating Role of Peer Feedback Quality

Abstract

Despite growing research in star performers, little research as of yet has explored the mechanisms by which stars affect team performance. Drawing on Social Information Processing theory, I examine a potential mediating mechanism as well as conditions that may affect the relationship between stars and team performance. Specifically, I explore the effects of peer feedback quality as a mediator between the proportion of star performers and team performance. In addition, I explore the potential moderating conditions of individual performance diversity and supervisor feedback quality on the hypothesized relationship between star performers and peer feedback quality. Lastly, I conduct a moderated-mediated analysis of the relationship between stars and team performance. Data was obtained from the U.S. Air Force’s Squadron Officer School located at Maxwell Air Force Base, AL, a six-and-a-half-week course for all U.S. Air Force Captains. The data consisted of 1200 responses from individuals assigned to one of 121 teams. Results largely do not support my hypotheses regarding the mediating and moderating relationships or the moderated-mediated relationships. However, they do provide additional support to extant research that has found a positive relationship between star performers and team performance. Contributions to the star performer and Social Information Processing theory literature, as well as limitations and recommendations for future research are discussed.