In three experiments, I investigate how supervisors’ task performance in lower-level jobs prior to being promoted to the supervisory level influences the targets they set for employees. I propose that supervisors show an “experience bias” by which they overemphasize their own experiences when setting targets for employees. As such, supervisors who achieved high performance before being promoted set higher targets than low-performing supervisors, despite having the same information about the employee’s potential. In line with my prediction, I find that supervisors exhibit this bias if they have worked on the employees’ task but that this bias is absent when they previously did a different task. I also show that this bias comes from a limited awareness that own experiences are not generalizable and it likely prevails in many managerial situations. The biased targets also lead to negative employee reactions. This study contributes to the understanding of supervisor target setting.

中文翻译：

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主管先前任务绩效对员工目标的影响

在三个实验中，我调查了主管在晋升为主管之前在较低级别工作中的任务表现如何影响他们为员工设定的目标。我建议主管表现出“经验偏见”，即在为员工设定目标时过分强调自己的经验。因此，尽管对员工潜力有相同的信息，但在晋升前取得高绩效的主管比表现低的主管设定了更高的目标。与我的预测一致，我发现主管在完成员工的任务时会表现出这种偏见，但当他们之前执行不同的任务时，这种偏见就不存在了。我还表明，这种偏见来自于一种有限的意识，即自己的经验是不可概括的，并且它可能在许多管理情况下普遍存在。有偏见的目标也会导致员工的负面反应。本研究有助于理解主管目标设定。