[Professional expertise of higher level employees; age stereotyping in self-assessments and supervisor ratings]

In this contribution the relationship between higher level employees' age and two different types of assessments, i.e. self-ratings and supervisor ratings, of professional expertise is described. In research literature age stereotypes are often reported to influence supervisor ratings. Two hypotheses were tested with original survey data, collected in 1995, from 420 higher level employees and 224 of their direct supervisors. For the measurement of professional expertise, a domain-independent measurement instrument was developed consisting of five different scales, i.e. knowledge, meta-cognitive knowledge, skills, social recognition and growth and flexibility. The instrument consists of 78 items and is very reliable. The outcomes regarding discriminant and convergent validity indicate that the distinctive power of the five scales is satisfactory. Concerning the analyses of the effects of age, our hypotheses have largely been confirmed. We found that employee ratings do not differ by age. By and large, supervisors have a more positive view concerning the capabilities of younger employees. Our data indicate that supervisors make a difference in evaluating the higher level over-fifties compared with the evaluation of the middle-aged (35-49) and the starters (20-34). Pairwise comparisons indicate a leniency effect; in general self-ratings are higher compared to supervisor ratings, in particular in the seniors.