Foreign Language Use, Attribution Error, and Newcomer Integration

When newcomers fail to perform well at first, incumbents often misattribute this underperformance to a general lack of ability rather than to limited organization-specific knowledge. As a result, performance rating gaps between new and experienced employees tend to persist. Using the example of learning organization-specific language, we examine this problem and a potential mitigation strategy: If language codes are difficult for everyone to master, will managers be more lenient with newcomers and less likely to misattribute poor performance to low ability? We test this through an experimental study in which some groups communicated in their native language while others were required to use a second language. Under the second-language condition, the performance assessment gap between newcomers and incumbents narrows. However, this convergence does not stem from newcomers receiving better evaluations. Instead, incumbents are rated more negatively. Importantly, these lower ratings are not tied to actual performance but rather to managers’ evaluations of their own job.