The interaction of social skill and organizational support on job performance.

The present study examined the moderating effect of perceived organizational support (POS) on the relationship between social skill and supervisor-rated job performance. On the basis of regulatory and activation models of behavior, the authors argue that low-POS environments activate social skill because they reflect situations in which interpersonal acuity is required to demonstrate effective job performance. Accordingly, the authors hypothesize that social skill is more strongly related to performance among workers reporting low rather than high levels of organizational support. Results of hierarchical moderated multiple regression analyses on data gathered from 2 samples support the hypothesis. These results suggest that the relevance of social skill to job performance may be dependent on contextual cues. Implications for substantive research, strengths and limitations, and directions for future research are offered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The moderating role of employee positive well being on the relation between job satisfaction and job performance.

This research provides further clarification to the age-old quest to better understand the happy/productive worker thesis. Using data from 109 managers employed by a large (over 5000 employees) customer services organization on the West Coast of the United States, both job satisfaction (r = .36, p     

Interaction of social skill and general mental ability on job performance and salary.

Job and organizational changes have promoted the importance of social skill at work, yet research in this area has been limited. The authors investigated the interaction between social skill and general mental ability (GMA) in the explanation of job performance and salary, controlling for personality and demographic characteristics. The results indicated that the relationships between social skill and job performance were stronger among workers high than low in GMA. In a similar manner, the relationships between GMA and job performance were stronger among workers high than low in social skill. The interaction on salary indicated that increases in social skill (or GMA) for high-GMA (or social skill) individuals were associated with higher salary levels. It is interesting, however, that increases in social skill (or GMA) for those low in GMA (or social skill) contributed to lower salaries. Implications of these results and directions for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The moderating effects of employee tenure on the relation between organizational commitment and job performance: A meta-analysis.

This meta-analysis investigated the correlation between attitudinal commitment and job performance for 3,630 employees obtained from 27 independent studies across various levels of employee tenure. Controlling for employee age and other nuisance variables, the authors found that tenure had a very strong nonlinear moderating effect on the commitment-performance correlation, with correlations tending to decrease exponentially with increasing tenure. These findings do not appear to be the result of differences across studies in terms of the type of performance measure (supervisory vs. self), type of tenure (job vs. organizational), or commitment measure (Organizational Commitment Questionnaire [L. W. Porter, R. M. Steers, R. T. Mowday, & P. V. Boulian, 1974] vs. other). The implications and future research directions of these results are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of creative process engagement on employee creative performance and overall job performance: A curvilinear assessment.

Integrating theories addressing attention and activation with creativity literature, we found an inverted U-shaped relationship between creative process engagement and overall job performance among professionals in complex jobs in an information technology firm. Work experience moderated the curvilinear relationship, with low-experience employees generally exhibiting higher levels of overall job performance at low to moderate levels of creative process engagement and high-experience employees demonstrating higher overall performance at moderate to high levels of creative process engagement. Creative performance partially mediated the relationship between creative process engagement and job performance. These relationships were tested within a moderated mediation framework. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-interest and other-orientation in organizational behavior: Implications for job performance, prosocial behavior, and personal initiative.

In this article, the authors develop the self-concern and other-orientation as moderators hypothesis. The authors argue that many theories on work behavior assume humans to be either self-interested or to be social in nature with strong other-orientation but that this assumption is empirically invalid and may lead to overly narrow models of work behavior. The authors instead propose that self-concern and other-orientation are independent. The authors also propose that job performance, prosocial behavior, and personal initiative are a function of (a) individual-level attributes, such as job characteristics when employees are high in self-concern, and (b) group-level attributes, such as justice climate when employees are high in other-orientation. Three studies involving 4 samples of employees from a variety of organizations support these propositions. Implications are discussed for theory on work behavior and interventions geared toward job enrichment and team-based working. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relative importance of task, citizenship, and counterproductive performance to global ratings of job performance: A policy-capturing approach.

A review of research on job performance suggests 3 broad components: task, citizenship, and counterproductive performance. This study examined the relative importance of each component to ratings of overall performance by using an experimental policy-capturing design. Managers in 5 jobs read hypothetical profiles describing employees' task, citizenship, and counterproductive performance and provided global ratings of performance. Within-subjects regression analyses indicated that the weights given to the 3 performance components varied across raters. Hierarchical cluster analyses indicated that raters' policies could be grouped into 3 homogeneous clusters: (a) task performance weighted highest, (b) counterproductive performance weighted highest, and (c) equal and large weights given to task and counterproductive performance. Hierarchical linear modeling indicated that demographic variables were not related to raters' weights. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Job stress and job performance controversy revisited: An empirical examination in two countries.

This study examined the relationship between the measures of job stress and job performance among employees working in a large North American-based multinational corporation in Malaysia (N = 305) and Pakistan (N = 325). Data were collected by means of a structured questionnaire from employees on job stress and turnover intention. Job performance and absenteeism data were obtained from the company's records. In both countries, data were more supportive of the negative linear relationship between stress and performance than other types of relationships. Overall, 90% of comparisons supported the negative linear relationship, whereas a u-shaped/curvilinear relationship was supported in 10% of instances. Implications of the findings are discussed for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Turnover intention and emotional exhaustion "at the top": Adapting the job demands-resources model to leaders of addiction treatment organizations.

Compared with the large literature on subordinate employees, there are few studies of emotional exhaustion and turnover intention for organizational leaders. There is little research that has extended the job demands-resources (JD-R) model of emotional exhaustion to leaders. In this study, the authors adapted the JD-R framework to analyze data collected from a sample of 410 leaders of addiction treatment organizations. The authors considered whether two job demands (performance demands and centralization) and two job resources (innovation in decision making and long-range strategic planning) were associated with emotional exhaustion and turnover intention. The authors also examined whether emotional exhaustion fully or partially mediated the associations between the job-related measures and turnover intention. The results supported the partially mediated model. Both job demands were positively associated with emotional exhaustion, and the association for long-range strategic planning was negative. Emotional exhaustion was positively associated with turnover intention. Centralization and innovation in decision making were also directly associated with turnover intention. Future research should continue to examine this theoretical framework among leaders of other types of organizations using more refined measures of demands and resources. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Job satisfaction, job performance, and situational characteristics.

How are job satisfaction and performance related to the variables of the situation? S were approximately 2500 workers in 72 warehouses of 1 company. Job satisfaction was measured by questionnaire items. Factor analysis was used to relate the variables of quantity, quality, profitability, turnover, size of workforce, city size, wage rate and unionization and percentage of males. Job satisfaction was highest with the greatest productivity and profit. Small town culture had the most satisfaction and performance. From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3LH65K. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of organizational embeddedness on development of social capital and human capital.

This article examines the effects of organizational embeddedness on employees' activities to build social capital and human capital. To test a latent growth model, we collected data from 375 managers at multiple points over an 8-month period. We found that the more embedded employees perceived themselves to be at Time 1, the more likely they were to show declines in social capital development behaviors over time. In addition, declines in social capital development behavior were directly related to declines in human capital development behavior over time. These findings highlight the potential negative consequences embeddedness can have on employees' career development activity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affect and the motivational foundations of social capital.

Social capital is a resource that includes the willingness of members of society to cooperate with each other, even when it is not in their own individual material self-interests to do so, or enforce beneficial social norms, even when this is materially costly for the enforcer. Evidence from economic choice experiments suggests that affect may play an important role in the individual-level decision process that generates these behavioral tendencies. Negative affective responses to uncooperative behavior can lead to a breakdown in social capital, if there is no option to punish. Given a punishment option, however, individuals discipline uncooperative types, even though it is materially costly to do so. This can completely counteract the tendency for social capital to decline in repeated interactions. Positive affect, triggered by punishing uncooperative types, appears to play a role in generating this socially beneficial willingness to sanction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Work-family enrichment and job performance: A constructive replication of affective events theory.

Based on affective events theory (AET), we hypothesize a four-step model of the mediating mechanisms of positive mood and job satisfaction in the relationship between work-family enrichment and job performance. We test this model for both directions of enrichment (work-to-family and family-to-work). We used two samples to test the model using structural equation modeling. Results from Study 1, which included 240 full-time employees, were replicated in Study 2, which included 189 matched subordinate-supervisor dyads. For the work-to-family direction, results from both samples support our conceptual model and indicate mediation of the enrichment-performance relationship for the work-to-family direction of enrichment. For the family-to-work direction, results from the first sample support our conceptual model but results from the second sample do not. Our findings help elucidate mixed findings in the enrichment and job performance literatures and contribute to an understanding of the mechanisms linking these concepts. We conclude with a discussion of the practical and theoretical implications of our findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response set and the prediction of clerical job performance.

How important is response set in accounting for whatever predictability a personality inventory may have? The Gordon Personal Inventory was administered to 41 Ss and the results checked against ratings of job performance with some degree of validity. When response set was ruled out statistically, this validity disappeared. "Measurement of response sets may prove to be a valuable approach to personality assessment." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4HF75K. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A personality trait-based interactionist model of job performance.

Evidence for situational specificity of personality job performance relations calls for better understanding of how personality is expressed as valued work behavior. On the basis of an interactionist principle of trait activation (R. P. Tett & H. A. Guterman, 2000), a model is proposed that distinguishes among 5 situational features relevant to trait expression (job demands, distracters, constraints, releasers, and facilitators), operating at task, social, and organizational levels. Trait-expressive work behavior is distinguished from (valued) job performance in clarifying the conditions favoring personality use in selection efforts. The model frames linkages between situational taxonomies (e.g., J. L. Holland's [1985] RIASEC model) and the Big Five and promotes useful discussion of critical issues, including situational specificity, personality-oriented job analysis, team building, and work motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The interactive effects of conscientiousness and agreeableness on job performance.

The authors hypothesized that the relationship between conscientiousness and job performance would be stronger for persons high in agreeableness than for those low in agreeableness. Results of hierarchical moderated regression analyses for 7 independent samples of employees across diverse occupations provided support for the hypothesis in 5 of the samples. In samples supporting the hypothesis, among the highly conscientious workers, those low in agreeableness were found to receive lower ratings of job performance than workers high in agreeableness. One explanation for lack of an interaction between conscientiousness and agreeableness in the other 2 samples is that those jobs were not characterized by frequent, cooperative interactions with others. Overall, the results show that highly conscientious workers who lack interpersonal sensitivity may be ineffective, particularly in jobs requiring cooperative interchange with others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The moderating influence of job performance dimensions on convergence of supervisory and peer ratings of job performance: Unconfounding construct-level convergence and rating difficulty.

Meta-analysis was used to cumulate the correlations between supervisor and peer ratings for different dimensions of job performance. The general pattern in the data suggested that raters from the same organizational level disagree as much as raters from different levels. Methods were used to separate the effects of rating difficulty and lack of construct-level convergence on the correlation between supervisor and peer ratings. The authors found complete construct-level convergence for ratings of overall job performance, productivity, effort, job knowledge, quality, and leadership but not for ratings of administrative competence, interpersonal competence, and compliance or acceptance of authority. Higher rating difficulty was more strongly associated with lower mean observed peer-supervisor correlations than were construct-level disagreements between peers and supervisors. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A note on job performance: Differences between respondent and nonrespondent salesmen to an attitude survey.

Salesmen respondents (N = 72) and nonrespondents (N = 19) to a mail attitude questionnaire were compared in terms of 2 objective measures of performance: net sales points and net total points. Mean scores on both measures were significantly higher for respondents than for nonrespondents. These results tended to follow results of other studies in nonindustrial settings that suggested volunteers or respondents are, in general, "better" persons in terms of such variables as motivation, personality and, in this case, job performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Generalized Thurstone and Guttman scales for measuring technical skills in job performance.

"Check lists for use in evaluating task performance in several related naval job specialities (ratings) were shown to meet the Thurstone and Guttman scalability requirements. The Scaled Technical Proficiency Check Lists evaluate the status of a technician with reference to tasks normally performed by men of equivalent pay grade and rating. The lists contain only a relatively small number of items, so that they are simple and convenient to use. Yet, because the tasks included form a scale, the score obtained from them can be generalized in meaning to the 'universe' of tasks of which they are representative." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4LD37S. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)