Missing the deadline impacted the evaluation of the work and the contractor's reputation.

A comprehensive study consisting of eight main and 10 additional experiments was conducted by marketing and psychology experts from Stanford Graduate School of Business (USA) and the University of Toronto (Canada). Nearly seven thousand individuals participated, including managers, executives, HR personnel, and others whose professional roles involve evaluating employees.

Participants were asked to assess various types of work samples, including advertising flyers, illustrations and drawings, presentations, business proposals, photographs, and news articles. Comments indicated whether the submissions were made on time, ahead of schedule, or late.

It was found that tardiness negatively affected the perception of the submitted works to the same extent as if they had objective flaws. Respondents who believed that the submitters missed the deadline consistently rated the quality of the work lower than those who thought the deadlines were met. The negative assessment was similar regardless of how late the submission was—whether by a day or a week—and whether the submitter had warned about the delay.

Moreover, missing a deadline generally had a detrimental effect on the impression of the submitter, creating a perception of insufficient competence and diligence. Their reputation suffered even from a single instance of lateness, reducing the likelihood of being entrusted with responsible tasks in the future and, consequently, hindering career advancement, the researchers noted.

However, the negative bias of the evaluators was mitigated when the deadline breach was due to factors beyond the submitter's control. A similar effect was observed when the work or its timely completion was characterized as not particularly important. Additionally, submitting work early did not confer any advantages or improve opinions about its quality.

The researchers confirmed these trends in a non-English speaking country as well. In an experiment at a Chinese high school, high school students were recruited as "judges" for a staged competition. They were tasked with evaluating artistic works on paper with two submission date options for the contestants—after and before the final deadline.

Although participants were clearly instructed to disregard any other details except for the work itself, submissions turned in after the deadline still received lower ratings.

The authors discussed the findings of the study in a scientific article published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.