Experience, experience, experience: Too much of a good thing for executive performance

Abstract Cumulative work experience is considered as a critical contributor to one's performance. However, Human Capital Theory and The Experience Trap propose seemingly contradictory perspectives regarding the work experience–performance relationship, and thereby calls for a means for integration. In this study, we investigated the relationship between cumulative experience and work performance using data generated from a comprehensive questionnaire and executive performance appraisals of 376 executives from a large business group in South Korea. By measuring work experience using multiple proxies (organizational tenure, executive tenure, and self‐evaluated, cumulative work experience), we found that the association between experience and performance is not simply linear, but rather a curvilinear (inverted‐U shaped). The time‐lagged study design utilized across two time‐points ensured the robustness of this finding. Interestingly, a closer look at the nature of the curvilinear relationship for organizational tenure and self‐evaluated experience uncovered opposite trends, providing a multi‐faceted understanding of the experience–performance relationship. Our findings challenge the conventional belief in the linear relationship between experience and performance, and call for a critical assessment of current human resources (HR) practices that heavily rely on work experience.