WORKING SMARTER AND HARDER - A LONGITUDINAL-STUDY OF MANAGERIAL SUCCESS

We measure the effects of motivation and ability on the early career s uccess of a sample of Master's of Business Administration (MBA) gradua tes in the early years of their careers. We argue that performance is a joint effect of two important individual characteristics: general co gnitive ability and motivation. General cognitive ability, which is re presentative of the general population, refers to individual differenc es in tasks or pursuits that demand mental effort, such as abstraction , rule inference, generalization, and manipulating or transforming pro blems. Motivation is conceptualized as a stable mental state that ener gizes human behavior. Results show that the combination of high genera l cognitive ability and motivation is significantly associated with mo re early career success. MBAs who were both smarter and worked harder were more successful in their job search upon graduation, were earning higher salaries, had more rapid pay increases, and received more prom otions in their early careers. These findings add to the mounting evid ence that studying enduring individual characteristics is critical to predicting behavior.