LITERATURE REVIEW: CONCEPTS
2.14 Determinants/Perspectives of Employee Performance
2.14.1 Individual Specific Variables (Individual Perspective)
1) Cognitive Abilities
A widely-used definition of abilities from Ree, Carretta, and Steindl (2001: 21) refers to ―the power or capacity to act financially, legally, mentally, physically, or in some other way.‖ In other words, cognitive ability refers to a person‘s mental ability or capacity with respect to mental tasks. It is generally assumed that mental ability is related to performance and this has generated substantive research about the relationship between general mental ability (GMA) and performance. According to Sonnentag et al. (2010), meta-analyses have shown that GMA is a strong predictor of job performance. Examples include a meta-analytic study of Hunter and Hunter (1984) in the USA, and Canada and Bertua, Anderson, and Salgado‘s (2005) and Salgado et al.‘s (2003) in the UK and other European countries. Hunter and Hunter found a correlation of 0.51 while Bertua et al. and Salgado et al. found a correlation of 0.48 and 0.62 respectively.
Further findings based on the meta-analytic technique have shown that the correlations between GMA and job performance differ across job types. Thus, higher correlations are found for more complex jobs than simple jobs (Sonnentag et al., 2010). Motowidlo et al. (1997) argued that cognitive ability is positively related to task performance by impacting task habits, task skills, and task knowledge. They indicated that the relationship between cognitive ability and contextual performance should be weaker because cognitive ability is only related to contextual knowledge but not to contextual habits or contextual skills. Expectedly, the empirical findings support this as they found the association between cognitive ability and organisational citizenship behaviour or related contextual performance constructs to be weak and mostly non-significant (Chan and Schmitt, 2002). However, earlier studies reported a positive relationship (Allworth and Hesketh, 1999).
Lastly, empirical research findings on the relationships between cognitive ability and adaptive performance as well as counterproductive work performance are scarce but can be generally assumed to be positive for adaptive performance and negatively related to counterproductive work behaviours. It can therefore be concluded that cognitive abilities are related to overall job performance in general and to task and adaptive performance in particular. Cognitive abilities do not seem to be a strong or consistent predictors of contextual performance, but they are negatively associated with counterproductive work behaviours.
2) Knowledge
There has been a general assumption that knowledge influences job performance and empirical research has supported this assumption (Hunter and Hunter, 1984; Campbell et al., 1993; Dye, Reck and McDaniel, 1993; Sternberg, 1997; McDaniel, Morgeson and Finnegan, 2001). According to Sonnentag et al.
(2010), meta-analytic evidence suggests that job knowledge (declarative knowledge) is related to job performance and even higher for more complex jobs (Dye et al., 1993). The correlation between tacit knowledge and job performance has been found to range between 0.20 and 0.40 (Sternberg, 1997). In general terms, Sonnentag et al.
(2010) agree that job knowledge mediates individual dispositions (cognitive ability and personality) and job performance.
With respect to the various dimensions of employee performance, Chan and Schmitt (2002) studied 160 civil service employees and found that knowledge (situational judgement) was positively related to task performance as well as contextual performance (job dedication and interpersonal facilitation). With respect to adaptive performance, studies have argued that knowledge has the potential, helps, and is beneficial for adaptive performance (Chen, Thomas and Wallace, 2005; Fay and Frese 2010). Even though empirical evidence is lacking, it can generally be assumed that knowledge will be negatively related to counterproductive work performance.
3) Experience
Experience is essential for job performance. In fact, Sonnentag et al.
(2010) have clearly stated that job experience is relevant to performance. Research has found that job experience leads to the acquisition of skills, techniques, methods, psychomotor habits, among others that directly produce improvements in performance capabilities (Kahya, 2007). Hunter and Hunter (1984) conducted a study and found a mean correlation of 0.18 between job experience and job performance. Even though McDaniel, Schmidt and Hunter (1988) found a positive relationship between experience and job performance, they indicated that the relationship decreases with age. Sonnentag et al. (2010) argued that in general terms, the role of experience mostly refers to task performance or overall job performance because research is often scarce on the other aspects of performance.
Researchers (Motowidlo and van Scotter, 1994; van Scotter and Motowidlo, 1996; Chan and Schmit, 2002) however have found a weak correlation between experience and contextual performance, while others did not find support for this relationship (Ferris, Witt and Hochwarter, 2001). Also, a weak positive correlation was found between experience and adaptive performance (Allworth and Hesketh, 1999). Even though less researched, it is generally expected that there will be a mixed correlation between experience and counterproductive work performance.
This is because whereas some experienced workers will know and largely avoid negative work behaviours, some may use their experience to cause harm to the organisation.
4) Non-cognitive Predictors
Apart from the cognitive predictors discussed above, non-cognitive factors have received considerable research attention. Some of the non-cognitive factors include personality such as the five factor model (McCrae and Costa, 1989;
Digman, 1990), more narrow traits, the pro-active personality concept (Crant, 1995), and core self-evaluations (Judge and Bono, 2001). Studies by Barrick and Mount (1991) and Kanfer and Kantrowitz (2002) showed that there is generally a low correlation between personality factors and performance measures. Specifically, there has been a positive correlation between the five factor model of personality and contextual performance (Organ and Ryan, 1995; LePine and van Dyne, 2001; Dalal, 2005). Similar findings have been found for task performance (Crant, 1995;
Thompson, 2005). In addition, there is some evidence that personality predicts adaptive performance (Pulakos et al., 2002; Griffin and Hesketh, 2003).
Campbell (1990) has done comprehensive work on the differences in individual performance and proposed a general model. Campbell made a distinction between performance components (job-specific task proficiency), the determinants of job performance constituents, and the predictors of these determinants. The performance constituent is a function of three determinants: declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge and skills, and motivation. Declarative knowledge consists of knowledge about facts, principles, goals, and the self. It is presumed to be a function of a person‘s abilities, personality, interests, education, training, experience, and aptitude treatment interactions. Procedural knowledge and skills include cognitive and
psychomotor skills, physical skills, self-management skills and interpersonal skills.
Motivation comprises the choice to perform, level of effort, and persistence of effort.
However, Campbell ignored situational variables as predictors of employee performance (Hesketh and Neal, 1999). Figure 2.2 presents Campbell‘s model.
Figure 2.2 Determinants of Job Performance Source: Campbell, 1990.
Research on individual predictors of job performance can be collectively placed under the individual differences perspective, especially research that addresses cognitive ability, personality, motivational factors, and experience as predictors of job performance (Sonnentag, 2002). On the practical side, managers and HR officers that adopt an individual difference perspective on performance must choose individuals on the basis of their abilities, experiences, and personality. This perspective also acknowledges the role of training and the fact that training should tackle knowledge and skills appropriate for performance as well as exposing individuals to specific experiences, such as traineeship and mentoring programs, as they are presumed to have a valuable effect on an individual‘s performance (Campbell et al., 1993;
Sonnentag and Frese, 2002).