Organizational Experience and Performance: A Systematic Review and Contingency Framework

Organizational experience is generally expected to have a positive effect on subsequent task performance. However, research over the past two decades has recognized an increasing number of circumstances in which the performance effects of experience are less clear or even negative. Given the inconclusive evidence on the nature of the experience–performance relationship, we conduct a systematic review and synthesize previously unconnected streams of literature on the organizational experience–performance relationship into a contingency framework on how the applicability, accessibility, and adoption of experiential knowledge jointly moderate the commonly assumed positive effect of organizational experience on performance in a focal task. Based on our integrative contingency framework, we identify important gaps in our understanding of these boundary conditions and develop a research agenda to expand our understanding of organizational experience effects on organizational performance.