| How variably or uniformly should opportunities (i.e., opportunities to perform) be allocated among newcomers to facilitate the production of star performers over time, and why? I used publicly available data on Major League Baseball (MLB) and National Basketball Association (NBA) players. The data set contains 135 batter cohorts, 135 pitcher cohorts, and 60 basketball player cohorts consisting of 16,422 players in MLB and 3,649 players in NBA. In Study 1, I pitted two competing models of opportunity allocation. Results supported the opportunity variability model (i.e., allocate varying amounts of opportunities), not the opportunity uniformity model (i.e., allocate similar amounts of opportunities). To examine why opportunity variability "won," I examined potential mechanisms in Studies 2 and 3. In Study 2, results supported neither opportunity-for-performance (i.e., allocate opportunities based on different performance levels) nor variability-beyond-performance (i.e., establish opportunity variability beyond that explained by differences in performance). In Study 3, given that potential level represents a newcomer's performance and KSAOs, results provided support for opportunity-for-potential (i.e., allocate opportunities based on different potential levels), but only partial support for variability-beyond-potential (i.e., establish opportunity variability beyond that explained by differences in potential levels). So, overall, allocating opportunities based on newcomers' KSAOs rather than performance levels facilitates star production. Though tying managerial practices (e.g., pay) to individual performance is often effective, the same principle does not seem to apply to allocating opportunities among newcomers for the purpose of facilitating the production of stars. |
