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Job performance assesses whether a person performs a job well. Job performance, studied academically as part of industrial and organizational psychology, also forms a part of human resources management. Performance is an important criterion for organizational outcomes and success. John P. Campbell describes job performance as an individual-level variable, or something a single person does. This differentiates it from more encompassing constructs such as organizational performance or national performance, which are higher-level variables. Campbell, J. P. (1990). Modeling the performance prediction problem in industrial and organizational psychology. In M. D. Dunnette & L. M. Hough (Eds.), Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (pp. 687-732). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc. Campbell, J. P., McCloy, R. A., Oppler, S. H., & Sager, C. E. (1993). A theory of performance: In N. Schmitt & W. C. Borman (Eds.), Personnel Selection in Organizations (pp. 35-70). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Campbell allows for exceptions when defining performance as behavior. For instance, he clarifies that performance does not have to be directly observable actions of an individual. It can consist of mental productions such as answers or decisions. However, performance needs to be under the individual's control, regardless of whether the performance of interest is mental or behavioral.
The difference between individual controlled action and outcomes is best conveyed through an example. In a sales job, a favorable outcome is a certain level of revenue generated through the sale of something (merchandise, or some service such as insurance). Revenue can be generated or not, depending on the behavior of employees. When the employee performs this sales job well, he is able to move more merchandise. However, certain factors other than employees' behavior influence revenue generated. For example, sales might slump due to economic conditions, changes in customer preferences, production bottlenecks, etc. In these conditions, employee performance can be adequate, yet sales can remain low. The first is performance and the second is the effectiveness of that performance. One can de-couple these two because performance is not the same as effectiveness.Campbell, J.P., Dunnette, M.D., Lawler, E.E., & Weick, K.E. (1970). Managerial behavior, performance, and effectiveness. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Another closely related construct is productivity. Campbell, J.P., & Campbell, R.J. (1988). Productivity in Organizations: New perspectives from industrial and organizational psychology. San Francisco: Jossy-Bass. One can think of productivity as a comparison of the amount of effectiveness that results from a certain level of cost associated with that effectiveness. In other words, productivity is the ratio of outputs to inputs—those inputs being effort, monetary costs, resources, etc.
Utility, another related construct, is defined as the value of a particular level of performance, effectiveness, or productivity. Utilities of performance, effectiveness, and productivity are value judgments.
Another taxonomy of job performance was proposed and developed for the US Navy by Murphy (1994). This model is significantly broader and breaks performance into only four dimensions.
In addition to these models dividing performance into dimensions, others have identified different types of behaviors making up performance.
Declarative knowledge represents the knowledge of a given task's requirements. For instance, declarative knowledge includes knowledge of principles, facts, ideas, etc.
If declarative knowledge is knowing what to do, procedural knowledge and skill is knowing how to do it. For example, procedural knowledge and skill includes cognitive skill, perceptual skill, interpersonal skill, etc.
The third predictor of performance is motivation, which refers to "a combined effect from three choice behaviors—choice to expend effort, choice of level of effort to expend, and choice to persist in the expenditure of that level of effort" (Campbell, 1990). It reflects the direction, intensity, and persistence of volitional behaviors.Dalal, R. S. & Hulin, C. L. (2008). Motivation for what? A multivariate dynamic perspective of the criterion. In R. Kanfer, G. Chen, & R. D. Pritchard (Eds.), Work motivation: Past, present, and future (pp. 63-100). New York: Routledge. Campbell (1990) emphasized that the only way to discuss motivation as a direct determinant of behavior is as one or more of these choices. (See also Work motivation.)
Campbell (1990) also mentioned several performance parameters that may have important implications for the job performance setting and should be investigated by industrial and organizational psychologists.
The first one is the distinction between speed and accuracy. This distinction is similar to the one between quantity and quality.Lawler, E.E. (1973). Motivation in work organizations. Monterey, C.A: Brooks/Cole. Important questions that should be considered include: which is most valued by the organization, maximized speed, maximized accuracy, or some balance between the two? What kind of trade offs should an employee makes? The latter question is important because speed and accuracy for the same task may be independent of one another.
The second distinction is between typical and maximum performance. Sackett, Zedeck, and Fogli did a study on supermarket cashiers and found that there was a substantial difference between scores reflecting their typical performance and scores reflecting their maximum performance. This study suggested the distinction between typical and maximum performance. Regular work situations reflect varying levels of motivation which result in typical performance. Special circumstances generate maximum employee motivation which results in maximum performance.
Additionally, the impact of organizational justice perceptions on performance is believed to stem from Equity Theory. This would suggest that when people perceive injustice they seek to restore justice. One way that employees restore justice is by altering their level of performance. Procedural justice affects performance as a result of its impact on employee attitudes. Distributive justice affects performance when efficiency and productivity are involved. Improving justice perceptions improves productivity and performance.
The American Psychological Association's Research in Action article on personnel selection recounts evidence indicating that general cognitive ability and conscientiousness account for 20-30% of the variance in job performance, with more complex jobs falling into the upper portion of that range. However, an American Psychological Association article states that conscientiousness actually impedes success in creative, innovative or spontaneous jobs such as artistic, social and investigative jobs. That article states that other psychological factors are also related to job performance, namely: creativity, leadership, integrity, attendance and cooperation.
There are differences in the extent to which job performance is predicted by intelligence depending on the occupation. A 1998 meta-analysis of the predictors of job performance for salesperson found that extraversion and conscientiousness predicted both ratings and sales, but general cognitive ability and age correlated with ratings but not sales. Social skills, a good mentor and interpersonal virtues predict career success, a concept related to job performance, and happiness, better than high education, IQ or cerebral virtues, except for certain occupations like theoretical physics.
Experiencing role conflict within the work place may also lead to workplace bullying. When companies undergo organizational change workers often experience either a loss or a gain in areas of a workers job, thus changing the expectations of the worker. Change is often very stressful for workers. Workers who might have lost a degree of power may feel like they lost their authority and begin to lash out at other employees by being verbally abusive, purposefully withholding work related items, or sometimes even physically to withhold their status.Mark Dombeck, Ph.D. (July 24, 2007) The Long Term Effects Of Bullying Retrieved 6 June 2016.
While there are many de-motivational effects of role conflict on work, there is also a positive. Those undergoing role conflict often had an increase in work creativity. Due to multiple roles, there is an increase in flexibility, different sources of information, and these people have many different perspectives to bring to the table.
A meta-analytic review by Joseph and Newman also revealed that both Ability EI and Trait EI tend to predict job performance much better in jobs that require a high degree of emotional labor (where 'emotional labor' was defined as jobs that require the effective display of positive emotion). In contrast, EI shows little relationship to job performance in jobs that do not require emotional labor. In other words, emotional intelligence tends to predict job performance for emotional jobs only.
A more recent study suggests that EI is not necessarily a universally positive trait. They found a negative correlation between EI and managerial work demands; while under low levels of managerial work demands, they found a negative relationship between EI and teamwork effectiveness. An explanation for this may suggest gender differences in EI, as women tend to score higher levels than men. This furthers the idea that job context plays a role in the relationships between EI, teamwork effectiveness, and job performance.
Another study assessed a possible link between EI and entrepreneurial behaviors and success. In accordance with much of the other findings regarding EI and job performance, they found that levels of EI only predicted a small amount of entrepreneurial behavior.
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