point beyond which a further increase in industry-based experience does not continue to improve
performance.8 The quadratic model indicates that 19 percent is the point at which the
performance benefit of continued industry-based experience levels out (p , 0.05, one-tailed).9
This finding is interesting. It suggests that the benefits of working within one industry setting
are made early and increase quickly, but then level out. The implication is that while non-specialists
do not have the sub-specialty knowledge gained by industry specialists with years of experience
working in a single industry setting, they may benefit from working on clients across limited
industry settings.