Self-other agreement: Comparing its relationship with performance in the U.S. and Europe

The use of multi-source feedback has proliferated in the United States in recent years; however, its usefulness in other countries is unknown. Using a large sample of American managers (n = 3793), this study first replicated earlier studies demonstrating that simultaneous consideration of self and other ratings of leadership skills is important for managerial performance ratings. In addition, the impact of self-other agreement on performance was investigated among 2732 managers in five European countries (U.K., Germany, France, Denmark, Italy). Results indicated that the effect of self and other ratings in the prediction of performance differs between the U.S. and the European countries in that the simultaneous inclusion of both self and other ratings is generally less useful in those countries than in the U.S. Further, the effect of self-other agreement varies among the European countries. Implications for multi-source feedback interventions as well as multi-national personnel management are discussed.