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Collin Quebedeaux
BUSI 310
Professor Creson
December 12, 2025
Soft Skills and Performance: A Synthesis of Five Empirical Studies
Introduction to the concept
Managers may find success or failure in an organization as a result of more than just their
technical knowledge. Effective managers rely on three skill categories: technical skills,
conceptual and decision skills, interpersonal and communication skills (Bateman & Konopaske,
2024, pp. 12-13). This framework highlights communication skills which are often referred to as
“people skills” or “soft skills”, which are the abilities a person has to work with others, build
trust, influence performance and keep their team members focused on the same goals. Bateman
and Konopaske (2024, pp. 12-13) link emotional intelligence as a component of soft skills, this is
the ability to understand and manage oneself and have an ability to empathize as well as motivate
people. Emphasizing the importance of interpersonal skills, communication and self-awareness
in management positions.
Building from overview from Bateman and Konopaske, there are multiple articles which
have conducted empirical research studies that examine soft skills management functions. The
studies reviewed in soft skills management include workforce analytics, university student skill
gaps, roles in operations and supply chains, student employability and readiness, and project
team selection. Collectively these articles show that technical expertise is highly essential, but
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soft skills can often determine if that expertise can translate to a sustainable performance,
organization retention, and successful team coordination.
What were the differences and similarities in the research done regarding the
concept?
All five articles treat soft skills as human capabilities that can influence organization
outcomes. However, these studies differ in what outcomes they are measuring, and how they
measure them. Each article shows soft skills are tied to performance outcomes, especially those
related to human relationships such as retention, role effectiveness, readiness, and team
effectiveness. Hoffman and Tadelis (2021, pp. 244-246) employ surveys and personnel data to
draw links to people management skills and their impact on turnover and internal organizational
rewards. Along those lines there are advantages to knowing the abilities of new recruits and what
departments they should work in. Fantozzi et al. (2024, pp. 58-62) used job databases to match
what roles in operations and supply chains they had and cross-referenced for correlations to soft
skills that best explained the activities, thus noting the roles that required more communicating.
This type of study highlights the roles which a company could hire, or advance individuals based
on their soft skills rather than just technical credentials. Authors Neto et al. (2023, pp. 14-18)
look smaller into project and organizational teams where managers select teams based on prior
performance and technical skill, not taking soft skills into account, which produced predictable
friction and undesirable behavior. The data in this case was conducted using interview data
analytics to obtain key points looked at during team assembly.
A set of articles examine soft skills in the education system. One article looks at
universities which had several students accept internships or positions of which performance
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evaluators found students lacking interpersonal skills, demonstrating the school had emphasized
technical learning over soft skills (Gunarathne et al., 2021, pp. 1-2, 6-8). Education has a large
influence on the structure and abilities of new workforce members, and this education will shape
how these students moving towards employment will handle their jobs. Zuhrohtun et al. (2024,
pp. 721-727) focuses on the student development in their article, using analysis to test soft skills
as a mediator between risk-management ability and job readiness, emphasizing that competency
learning did translate to readiness partially due to soft skill training. Learning on the job is very
important, however organizations have expectations for technical knowledge and soft skills in
modern business.
Some of the major differences are the context of the studies. As seen, there are some
reviews of educational curriculum’s influence in soft skills, as well as cause and effect business
analysis, and simply observation of positions and where soft skills are more prevalent. All
studies are focused on soft skills and how interpersonal skills and communication have affects on
the current and future workforce in some capacity.
What was unique in each article regarding the author’s or authors’ approach to the
concept?
Each article has distinct contribution in how soft skills are defined and measured. What
exactly each author analyzed is different, but analyzing the same ability. Hoffman and Tadelis
bring something unique as they quantify people management skills inside a large organization
testing several outcomes. The article shows that survey-measured soft skills have a strong
negative relation to turnover and that people with better interpersonal skills receive higher
ratings, promotions, and salary increases (Hoffman & Tadelis, 2021, pp. 243–246). They do a
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great job checking the direct influence of turnover based on soft skills related to performance
reviews and growth of individuals in the firm.
The study by Fantozzi et al. (2024, pp. 58-62) is unique due to their analysis and role-
mapping using a database and connecting individuals’ skills to standardize them rather than rely
directly on perceptions from interviews or surveys. This study provides a direct use for role base
hiring, creating a template for use during hiring decisions. The article written by Neto et al.
(2023, pp. 14-18) shows how important soft skills are in team selections, and that those who do
not take soft skills into account for team development, but rather displayed a cognitive bias
during recruitment, tended to fail.
As it relates to the upbringing of students into the workforce and the framework of
curriculum, two articles evaluate differently. The article by Gunarathne et al. (2021, pp. 1-2)
investigates accounting students after they’ve entered the work force and found employers happy
with their technical knowledge but disappointed at their interpersonal skills. Organizations are
developing a standard of which they expect each employee to communicate effectively and have
basic soft skills. Zuhrohtun et al. (2024, pp. 723-725) examine accounting students who have
learned about risk management in a lecture and analyze how their risk management competence,
soft skills, and work readiness are related. This work readiness review evaluated whether soft
skills mediate the relationship of risk management abilities and perceived work readiness.
What are the similarities in the research findings?
Across all five articles, a pattern appears which emphasizes how soft skills are a factor
which helps individuals’ technical capabilities to translate into outcomes which an organization
and employer value. The articles that review current organizations activities look at where soft
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skills are most effective, and the result of this both positively and negatively. Including the
university student studies, all five articles analyze soft skills impact and effectiveness. The
findings from each article are very similar.
Hoffman and Tadelis conclude that people skills can influence attrition and reward.
Those findings directly relate to Gunarathne et al. (2021, pp. 6-8) which show that employers
desire more soft skills from new hires. The comparison would support that leaders want
individuals with better communication skills and will be more valued. Fantozzi et al. (2024, pp.
61-62) found exact jobs or roles where soft skills are more important to key operations and
supply chain positions. Naturally there are positions which cater more to people-management
type individuals, and the authors worked to organize that, which would make it easier for these
leaders to hire, and for oncoming hires to be moved into the right positions for the organization.
Along with selection of individuals is the similarity to Neto et al. (2023, pp. 14-18) article, which
found team recruitment within an organization must evaluate the dynamic of members with
technical skills and soft skills in a team and that those teams which were lacking soft skills were
set up for failure. Zuhrohtun et al. (2024, pp. 726-727) echoes the same theme reporting how soft
skills development was found to be important to develop risk management concepts. Showing
that foundational education will shape students’ management abilities.
What are the differences in the research findings?
The biggest differences across the findings are which outcomes soft skills most strongly
influence and how each study chose to measure those outcomes. Hoffman and Tadelis focus
primarily on employee attrition and manager rewards, using employee surveys to measure
people-management skills and combining scores with a panel of personnel data from the
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organization under review. The results showed that people skills reduced unwanted employee
turnover and were strongly associated with higher performance ratings and salary growth
(Hoffman & Tadelis, 2021, pp. 243–246). In contrast, they are less concerned about new hire
school experience, and their specific job roles, and more the cause and effect of soft skills in an
active workplace.
Gunarathne et al. looks at soft skills from the angle of expectation performance gaps
between employers and university students. Instead of using personnel data, they have interviews
with students, academics, and employers and use supported curriculum documents to map where
soft skills are underdeveloped and how the program could change in teaching and assessments.
Their findings show that a gap persists between technical content and soft skills in the university
program and that only an integrated program approach where soft skills in practice will bring the
performance gap closer to expectations (Gunarathne et al, 2021, pp. 1-2, 6-8).
Fantozzi et al. differ by centering their work on job roles and activities in operations and
supply chain management positions. They extracted numerical scores of skills, abilities, and
work activities, running tests to see if these characteristics differ across roles. Their key findings
were that certain soft skills in relation to communication, team building and motivation are
statistically more important in select positions (Fantozzi et al. 2024, pp. 61-62). This means that
organizations can use the results to help mapping and template hiring to align people with
organizational roles that would benefit both parties.
Zuhrohtun et al. focus on the student work readiness and use a more statistical modeling
approach in their research. Through collecting online questionnaire data from students who
learned risk management via a lecture, and measured their risk management competence, soft
skills, and work readiness. They found that process risk management competence improves
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students’ soft skills, and that soft skills in return significantly influence work readiness
Zuhrohtun et al. (2024, pp. 726-727)
Neto et al. has research which differs from others by looking closer into the active
workforce and looking at project team selection. They analyzed how teams and leaders were
chosen and what variables were considered as well as challenges which emerged. Their results
show that the company heavily relied on past technical performance and gave much less weight
to soft skills in team selection which then led to experiencing problems with allocation,
prioritization, and leadership behaviors while on a project (Neto et al., 2023, pp. 14-18).
Balancing technical and soft skills in team dynamics is critical, and the author recommends
giving more emphasis to soft skills specifically in the leadership style when forming a project
team.
Conclusion
Taken together, from the textbook and all five research articles, the concept is reinforced
that soft skills are not optional for managers and employees, they are core driving factors of how
work will get done. Technical, conceptual, and interpersonal skills are the three pillars of
effective management, setting soft skills as a core principle, especially when expanded with
emotional intelligence and self-awareness. In practice, the empirical studies show that these
interpersonal and communication skills translate to concrete outcomes. Soft skills can affect
turnover and rewards, narrow the gap of employer expectations for new hires, define specific
role placement, improve work readiness, and complete team dynamic balance.
The difference across studies brings up several actions that can be taken as well.
Organizations can use survey tools to identify and reward strong people-skill managers that are
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driving productivity, universities can redesign their curriculum to integrate soft skills
development, employers can use data to help map job roles as well. Educators and employers can
recognize that technical competence only becomes applicable when teams can work together in
communication and collaboration which can require people-management leadership in complex
environments. For managers and leaders, the implication is straightforward, it’s about developing
the capacity to turn technical knowledge into sustainable results through people, which is
ultimately what the management is for, the people.
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References
Bateman, T. S., & Konopaske, A. R. (2024). M: Management (8th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.
Fantozzi, I. C., Di Luozzo, S., & Schiraldi, M. M. (2024). On tasks and soft skills in operations
and supply chain management: Analysis and evidence from the O*NET database. The
TQM Journal, 36(9), 53–74. https://doi.org/10.1108/TQM-04-2023-0104
Gunarathne, N., Senaratne, S., & Herath, R. (2021). Addressing the expectation–performance
gap of soft skills in management education: An integrated skill-development approach for
accounting students. The International Journal of Management Education, 19(3), 100564.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2021.100564
Hoffman, M., & Tadelis, S. (2021). People management skills, employee attrition, and manager
rewards: An empirical analysis. Journal of Political Economy, 129(1), 243–285.
https://doi.org/10.1086/711409
Neto, A. L., Silva Junior, O., & da Silva, L. F. (2023). The importance of soft skills in the
selection of project teams in a company in the agile transformation stage. RISUS –
Journal on Innovation and Sustainability, 14(1), 4–18. https://doi.org/10.23925/2179-
3565.2023v14i1p4-18
Zuhrohtun, Z., Sunaryo, K., Astuti, S., & Susanto, H. (2024). The role of soft skills in mediating
the relationship between risk management competency and work readiness. JPPI (Jurnal
Penelitian Pendidikan Indonesia), 10(3), 719–728.
