Organisational attributes that improve performance up to a point begin to reduce it beyond that point, so many relationships assumed monotonic are inverted U-shaped.
Pierce and Aguinis argued in 2013 that a large number of findings in management are reported as linear because the studied range never reached the turning point. Experience, cohesion, diversification, monitoring and job autonomy all show the pattern. The methodological consequence is that a positive linear result may simply mean nobody sampled enough of the variable.
In practice
- A team given more autonomy improves until nobody knows what anyone else is doing.
- A firm that diversified profitably four times loses money on the fifth, with no change in how it chose.