2287: That’s Enough? An Inductive Study of Strategic Underperformance at Work (10136)

Individual strategic underperformance by capable, motivated, and well-resourced employees occurs in myriad daily contexts and is problematic in practice to navigate, largely due to our limited theoretical understanding of this phenomenon. Through a three-phased qualitative study, we developed a model of drivers, intended implications, byproducts, and boundary conditions of strategic underperformance. We found evidence for a two-dimensional continuum of strategic underperformance which encompasses the: (1) fulfillment of task requirements (ranging from sufficiency to mediocrity), and (2) intended visibility (ranging from covert to overt). This reframes current theorizing on underperformance as more than solely poor performance. Our emergent findings across three phases of data collection also illustrated two primary drivers for strategic underperformance: intrapersonal (interpersonal) imbalance leading to an intrapersonal (interpersonal) rebalancing strategy. Further, one’s performance capabilities (e.g., being a high performer) and status characteristics (e.g., seniority, gender, race) shaped the latitude with which informants perceived they could strategically underperform. Finally, our analysis surfaced the double-edged nature of strategic underperformance, highlighting patterns of both positive and negative byproducts for the underperformers in the short- and long-term. Taken together, our study has implications for understanding and managing strategic underperformance within and between employees.

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