Perspectives on Models of Job Performance

TLDR

Contemporary job‑performance models link task, contextual, citizenship, counterproductivity, and deviance behaviors, highlight measurement challenges, and suggest a general performance factor whose source remains unclear. The study calls for research to identify the shared individual‑difference determinants underlying performance dimensions. The review finds that performance dimensions are positively correlated, indicating a shared general factor.

Abstract

Contemporary models of job performance are reviewed. Links between task performance, contextual performance, organizational citizenship behaviors, counterproductivity and organizational deviance are pointed out. Measurement issues in constructing generic models applicable across jobs are discussed. Implications for human resource management in general, and performance appraisal for selection and assessment in particular, are explored. It is pointed out that the different dimensions or facets of individual job performance hypothesized in the literature are positively correlated. This positive manifold suggests the presence of a general factor which represents a common variance shared across all the dimensions or facets. Although no consensus exists in the extant literature on the meaning and source of this shared variance (i.e., the general factor), rater idiosyncratic halo alone does not explain this general factor. Future research should explain the common individual differences determinants of performance dimensions.