LAUSR

Abstract Meritocratic promotion—promoting the best performing employees—is a pervasive strategy to fill leader positions. However, the predictive validity of this strategy is unclear due to diverging theoretical predictions from different research disciplines and due to inconsistent empirical results. Further, the different disciplines rarely acknowledge and refer to each other, thereby impeding a cumulative understanding of meritocratic promotion. With our systematic review, we intend to initiate an interdisciplinary dialogue by (i) providing an overview of pertinent theoretical approaches including their deviating predictions, (ii) proposing mediators and moderators of the relationship of employee performance and leader performance to improve future research on meritocratic promotion, (iii) assessing the study quality, and (iv) summarizing and discussing empirical findings to advance the understanding of the predictive validity of meritocratic promotion. We conclude by presenting theoretical conclusions, point towards future research directions, and provide guidance for future research, including a checklist. We also discuss practical implications for human resource management.