Passion Ignites: Effect of Expert-worker’s Passion on Employee Performance

Organizations often publicize the workers who are expert at their jobs and promote them as role models to motivate other employees. Departing from previous research which focus on the transmission of knowledge and skills from expert-workers to the employees, we theorize and test an overlooked motivational effect of the expert-workers’ passion on the employees’ performance. Grounding on social learning theory, we propose that expert-workers’ harmonious and obsessive passion may respectively increase focal employees’ harmonious and obsessive passion, which differentially influence their work performance. The results from two survey studies consistently showed a positive relationship between the expert-workers’ harmonious passion and the focal employees’ harmonious passion and work performance. The relationship was stronger when the focal employees and the expert-workers share the similar personal background (i.e., demographic features and expertise). But, the effect of expert-workers’ obsessive passion on focal employees’ obsessive passion and work performance was not significant. The implications of the findings are discussed.