Perfectionism at work is widespread and there is an ongoing debate on its relationship with work performance. Whereas most recent meta-analytic evidence suggests that perfectionistic concerns are unrelated to work performance, perfectionistic strivings showed a positive association with overall work performance. Keeping up with theoretical developments in perfectionism research, the present study draws on the Model of Excellencism and Perfectionism to provide a more nuanced perspective on how perfectionistic strivings relate to both in-role (goal attainment, in-role behavior) and extra-role performance (organizational citizenship behavior directed toward others, innovative work behavior). Multiple regression analyses based on two-wave survey data ( N = 223) showed that excellencism was uniquely positively related to goal attainment, in-role behavior, and organizational citizenship behavior directed toward others. In contrast, perfectionism only showed a unique positive relationship with innovative work behavior. These findings highlight the importance of distinguishing between excellencism and perfectionism as well as between in-role and extra-role performance when investigating the perfectionism-work performance relationship. While they indicate that perfectionism can be beneficial for innovative work behavior, they also cast further doubt on its benefits for other kinds of work performance.
Kleszewski et al. (Tue,) studied this question.