Dancing with the star: Benefits of a star employee's temporary absence for organizational performance

Abstract

A growing body of research emphasizes individuals as the key levers for organizational performance (Coff & Kryscynski, 2011; Frank & Obloj, 2014; Gambardella, Panico, & Valentini, 2015; Mollick, 2012). Within this domain, the emphasis on individual human capital is particularly salient in work that examines star performers (Groysberg, Lee, & Nanda, 2008), who are considered to make disproportionate individual contributions to their organizations (Wright, Coff, & Moliterno, 2014). Practitioners echo the importance of star performers evocatively through the “80-20 Rule” (Lavinsky, 2014), stating that 80% of the work in a firm is accomplished by the best 20% of workers.