Date of Award

5-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Industrial and Organizational Psychology

Department

Psychology

First Reader/Committee Chair

Nicholas Moon

Abstract

Although research on star employees has been around for a while, only a few studies have examined star employees' emergence. Star employees are responsible for a significant amount of organizational success. Their contribution can be seen in various areas such as organizational reputation and the attraction of talent and customers, peers’ influence in the shape of motivation, commitment, and productivity, and revenue. The positive outcomes associated with stars have driven the increased need for such employees. This research investigates the personality traits and the work context that predict stardom. Specifically, the research has three aims: a) understanding who star employees are, b) identifying characteristics of star employees, and c) examining the influence of the organizational environment and work design on star formation. A multivariate path analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between the predictors (i.e., grit, conscientiousness, extraversion, and political skill) and the four dimensions of stardom (e.g., performance, status, visibility, and social capital). Results supported hypotheses 1- 4, confirming the relatedness of grit, conscientiousness, extraversion, and political skill to stardom. In addition, the SMART work design model was used to investigate the moderation effect of mastery, autonomy, and relational job characteristics on the above directional relationships. Results indicated that work characteristics have little meaningful impact on star emergence, as only hypothesis 7a3 was supported, such that mastery strengthened the relationship between grit and stardom visibility. Furthermore, relative weights analysis was conducted to examine the weight each predictor (e.g., grit, political skill) accounts for in stardom. Results for research question 1 revealed that political skill accounted for the most variance in stardom compared to the other predictors.

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