Big Fish in Little Ponds

A big fish in a little pond is defined as an individual with a more positive reputation than the larger group (work unit or organization) within which he or she resides. The big fish in a little pond paradigm is important because it highlights the significance of multilevel reputation effects by including group perceptions of reputation along with individual ones. Specifically, the effects of the reputational context, or perceptions of the greater entity in which an individual is working (e.g., unit, group, team, organization), are important to take into consideration in combination with individual reputation perceptions because they can have different and joint effects on attitudes and behaviors in organizations.

When individuals have a higher reputation than their surroundings, they are more likely to think and behave in ways to protect their individual reputation, which may or may not be beneficial to the broader entity. On the other hand, when individuals have a lower reputation than the larger group, they have an increased risk of uncertainty and may think and act in ways to defend their group as well as to confirm their membership in it. In both cases, the individual’s reputation may be the same, and only how it relates to the broader group creates the difference in behaviors. For example, in studies on education, where the big fish in a little pond concept originated, similarly capable students showed varying self-conceptions and subsequent behavior, depending on whether they attended a more prestigious or less prestigious school. This entry provides information on the background and development of the big fish in little pond effect in the academic setting, indicates important elements of the paradigm, and shows how this literature applies to and can be expanded by research on reputation in organizations.

For Herbert Marsh and colleagues, the underlying premise of the big fish in little pond research is that frames of reference and standards of comparisons are important to understand when looking at how individuals evaluate themselves, because they can affect attitudes and behaviors as well as influence the optimal structure of individuals and groups within an organization. Results from studies in the educational setting, for example, show that individuals who are successful in relation to their group feel better about themselves even when the group is less prestigious. Moreover, capable students attending a prestigious school feel that they have lower academic potential than those attending a less prestigious school. These studies suggest that it is better to be a big fish in a little pond than a little fish in a big pond. Shifting the focus of this research from the educational to the organizational setting sheds light on the interplay of personal and group reputation in companies. Individuals feel better about themselves when they have a higher individual reputation than their group/unit/organization than when they have a lower reputation but are a member of a prestigious group. Thus, the potential reflected glory of being a member of a prestigious group or organization does not always make one feel good about oneself; the reputational context and comparisons matter.

Individuals focus on their relative standing in a group rather than on the group’s overall standing. This concept, relative deprivation, indicates that we measure ourselves against others around us. Relative deprivation suggests two important elements of big fish in little pond effects. First, reputation is relative and not absolute. Second, the comparison involved in big fish in little pond effects is with a collective level of analysis (the group/unit/organization) rather than with other individuals. The first point suggests that because perceptions (e.g., the intangible resource of reputation) are used in social comparisons, whether they are accurate or not, they tend to matter more than reality. The second point emphasizes that it is the comparison of the individual’s reputation with that of the social unit that is important, rather than the more traditional individual versus individual comparison found in social comparison theory. This distinguishes the effects of the environment from individual social comparison with peers. Thus, the big fish in little pond effect is a multilevel phenomenon that uses comparisons of reputation to integrate the individual and the collective level.

This research suggests that when organizations work to bolster their reputation it may have unintended negative consequences. Employees, in making the relative comparison between their reputation and their unit or organization’s growing, positive reputation, may come out relatively lower. Studies of big fish in little ponds in the educational setting have suggested that perceptions of being less positive than one’s group undermined self-concept, effort, intrinsic value, personal importance, academic performance, and occupational aspirations. This indicates that if an organization wants to bolster its reputation, it should also consider bolstering the reputation of those inside the organization. This could be done by emphasizing that “Organization X is great because of you” rather than simply stating that “Organization X is great.”

On the other hand, the findings from this research indicate that organizations may not need to expend resources to bolster their reputation. If being a big fish in a little pond could potentially influence important work outcomes such as employee engagement, motivation, identification, work performance, and career ambitions, then making sure your reputation is on parity with but not beyond that of your best people may be a workable strategy. If individuals evaluate their own personal reputation higher than the collective group reputation, it may result in more positive attitudes and behaviors at work. The studies on big fish in little pond effects suggest that personal reputation perceptions matter and should be examined in relation with the reputation of the context in which they are operating.