Category Archives: Performance
Performance under fire (IO Psychology)
When you’re trying to complete a task, do you try to learn something new along the way or do you just try to get the job done and not embarrass yourself? For example, when you need to complete the task of baking a cake, do you try the latest recipe so as to learn something new and broaden your culinary skills? Or do you avoid any recipe that looks hard and pray that everything comes out right so that you don’t embarrass yourself at your next dinner party? If you chose the former, you have a mastery goal orientation, and if you chose the latter, you have a performance-avoidance goal orientation.
Now that you’re becoming more familiar with goal orientation, let’s throw in a twist. Imagine that you have one hour to bake the cake. In this scenario, would you adopt a mastery goal orientation or a performance-avoidance goal orientation? According to the study by
James Beck of the University of Waterloo & Aaron M. Schmidt of the University of Minnesota, when under time pressure, people do not utilize a mastery goal orientation and more frequently adopt a performance-avoidance goal orientation. This makes sense. If you have 30 minutes to bake a cake, you’re probably not going to try something new and instead rely on a recipe that you’ve done before. Going one step further, this study also found that goal orientation affects performance, as people with a mastery goal orientation typically performed better than those with a performance-avoidance goal orientation. So, in sum, time pressure affects goal orientation that in turn affects performance.
For this study, there was a sample of 111 undergraduates who indicated their sense of time pressure and goal orientation before four different exams during a semester. Questions such as “I am constantly running out of time for this class” and “I am working under excessive time pressure” assessed time pressure; questions such as “In statistics class, I look for opportunities to develop new skills and knowledge” and “I prefer to avoid parts of statistics class where I might perform poorly” assessed goal orientation; and scores on exams measured performance.
Aberrant personality and career performance (IO Psychology)
Previous research has shown that personality traits – such as being conscientious, open to experience, and outgoing – predict job performance 1. What about uncommon (i.e., aberrant) characteristics such as being obsessive-compulsive, antisocial, and narcissistic? According to a study by Bart Wille , Filip De Fruyt, & Barbara De Clercq of Ghent University, aberrant personality characteristics also predict job performance. Specifically, borderline features, which includes having unstable interpersonal relations and poor impulse control; schizotypal traits, such as odd thoughts and disorganized thinking; and avoidant tendencies, such as social inhibition and hypersensitivity to criticism, were related to negative career outcomes. In contrast, antisocial traits, such as superficial charm and a disregard for others, and narcissistic features, such as a strong sense of self-importance and a need to be admired, were related to positive career outcomes. As an illustration of how antisocial and narcissistic traits may have a positive affect on career outcomes and allow people and companies to achieve great success, think of Gordon Gecko from the movie Wall Street. Or, if you prefer non-fiction, think of the various leaders of organizations who are charged with insider trading (e.g., Raj Rajaratnam), fraudulent accounting (e.g., Enron), or creating a ponzi scheme (e.g., Bernie Madhoff).
Overall, these results were found through a 15-year study of 247 Belgian college students. In 1994, participants responded to a personality questionnaire, and 15 years later, their career performance was evaluated. The NEO PI-R, a comprehensive personality questionnaire, measured personality. Income, number of subordinates, and managerial position served as indicators of extrinsic career success, and job satisfaction, career satisfaction, and perceived job stress served as indicators of intrinsic career success.
How Is Your Manager Doing at Performance Management? (Human Resource Management)
Performance management (PM) is the natural reaction to and extension of the hit or miss traditional performance appraisal. Instead of being a one-and-done event, PM is a set of behaviors that managers exhibit daily to identify, motivate, and develop their subordinates’ performance. Due to its effectiveness, putting a finger on the “right” PM system has been a popular and recent trend for many organizations. Unfortunately, this is often difficult for organizations as the literature has struggled to define and measure managerial PM behaviors.
In an effort better understand the PM construct, Kinicki and colleagues recently developed a reliable and valid measure of the managerial behaviors that make up effective PM. After a lengthy development process, their final scale included 27 items and measured the following six behavioral areas:
- Goal setting
- Communication
- Feedback
- Coaching
- Providing consequences
- Establishing/monitoring performance expectations
The scale overall displayed content, construct, and criterion-related validity. It also had the added benefit of accounting for unique criterion variance over existing leadership measures, supporting the idea that leadership and PM do not completely overlap conceptually.
Of course having a reliable and valid measure is important for further research efforts on PM, but perhaps the greatest benefit lies in the measure’s practical implications. Specifically, using this measure dovetails with other recent calls in the literature to hold managers accountable for PM, and to train them on proper execution of PM, instead of revamping the entire PM system when it doesn’t function like it should. Ultimately, having a manager-focused PM system, equipped with a viable means for evaluating their PM success, will ultimately save organizations money, time, and hassle in getting the best out of their employees.
Can Personality Become a Better Predictor of Performance? (IO Psychology)
Topic: Personality, Performance
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (NOV 2012)
Article: Implicit motives, explicit traits, and task and contextual performance at work
Authors: Lang, J. W. B., Zettler, I., Ewen, C., and Hulsheger, U. R.
Reviewer: Neil Morelli
In the world of selection, personality has often been looked at as a useful predictor of job performance. But what if current personality measures are missing an important part of someone’s personality and an opportunity to be a better predictor of performance? Some research suggests that the missing piece of the personality pie is our implicit motives, or our wishes and desires, which are typically boiled down to three main areas: affiliation, power, and achievement.
When we look at how these inner motives are expressed, or “channeled”, by the explicit personality traits, such as extraversion or agreeableness, we are able to get a more complete picture of how personality shapes behavior. Lang et al., tested whether considering this channeling approach when measuring personality would increase its usefulness as a predictor of work performance.
For example, extroverted people with a high inner motive for affiliation might have increased work performance through the building of strong working relationships and the desire to meet expectations. In other words, their extroverted personality channels their motive in a way that results in a beneficial outcome at work.
Along with supervisor ratings of task and contextual performance, Lang et al. gathered explicit worker personality traits and used IRT to determine implicit motives from coded responses to free response narratives. They discovered that inner motives worked together with explicit personality traits to explain 8% more variance in performance ratings.
Lang et al. understand that there are practical measurement issues for practitioners to consider the channeling effects of inner motives, but they note that as measurement methods improve it should be more feasible to use both to increase the predictability of personality.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
Whistle While You Work: The Importance of Work Enjoyment for Managers (Human Resource Management)
Topic: Motivation, Performance, Wellness
Publication: Journal of Management (SEP 2012)
Article: Driven to Work and Enjoyment of Work: Effects on Managers’ Outcomes
Authors: Laura Graves, Marian Ruderman, Patricia Ohlott, & Todd Weber
Reviewed By: Thaddeus Rada
Work motivation, a topic that is relevant to almost all employees in almost every organization, is a common research area in IO psychology. Within the vast motivation literature, two types of motivation that have emerged in recent years are the driven to work and enjoyment of work motives. The driven to work motive is based on the feeling that a person should work (they feel compelled to), while the enjoyment of work motive emphasizes intrinsic motivation and personal enjoyment of the work itself. Recently, Graves and colleagues conducted a study to identify the role that these two types of motivation might have on managers’ performance, career satisfaction, and psychological strain.
Using a sample of over 300 managers, Graves and colleagues found that, while the driven to work motive did not seem to be substantially related to the outcomes in question, the enjoyment of work motive was related to the outcomes. Specifically, managers who reported higher levels of work enjoyment were also likely to have higher levels of job performance and career satisfaction, and lower levels of psychological strain, than managers who reported lower levels of work enjoyment.
Based on these results, it appears that the enjoyment of work motive is an effective and desirable motive to cultivate in managers. Fortunately, this motive may be emphasized in a variety of ways, including training, personnel selection, and through a company’s culture; doing so may result in a number of positive outcomes for managers (and, by conjunction, some positive outcomes for managers’ employees as well).
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
The Competitive Advantage Behind Investing in Employees (Human Resource Management)
Topic: Performance, Human Resources, Culture, Business Strategy
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (2012)
Article: Impact of High-Performance Work Systems on Individual- and Branch- Level Performance: Test of a Multilevel Model of Intermediate Linkages
Authors: Samuel Aryee, Fred O. Walumbwa, Emmanuel Y. M. Seidu, & Lilian E. Otaye
Reviewed By: Lauren A. Wood, M.S.
With the rapid growth of global competition and the speed with which competitors can imitate products and technology, organizations are turning to human capital to differentiate themselves. As such, researchers and practitioners have stressed the value that employees play in creating and sustaining an organization’s competitive edge. As a result, many organizations have implemented high-performance work systems (HPWS), which are HR programs closely linked to the goals and culture of the organization that are designed to develop employee skills and organizational commitment in order to create a self-sustaining competitive advantage.
With a sample of 37 branches of two banks, Aryee, Walumbwa, Seidu, and Otaye tested a model linking HPWSs and performance to individual-level (i.e., employee service) and unit-level (i.e., branch market) performance outcomes. They based the model on empowerment theory which centers on redesigning work to minimize top-down control and build in greater decision-making autonomy in lower rungs of the organizational ladder. In general, the model proposes that HPWS leads to greater empowerment, and more empowered employees lead to increased customer service and branch market performance.
The authors found that variables assessed at the individual level of analysis (experienced HPWPs, employee empowerment, and service orientation) and at the unit level (use of HPWPs, empowerment climate, and aggregated service performance) influenced both levels of performance outcomes (individual level: service performance; unit level: branch market performance). Specifically, at the unit level, they found that the greater the usage of HPWPs level led to stronger empowerment climate. And, at the individual level, employee service orientation impacted the relationship between employee empowerment and service performance. They also found that empowerment climate and employee reports of experienced HPWS (at least in part) impacted the effect of unit level HPWPs on individual level employee empowerment. Additionally, individual reports of empowerment partially mediated the effect of experienced HPWS and empowerment climate on service performance.
Taken together, organizations can benefit from designing HPWS based on the goals and culture of the company. The findings indicate that investing in employees pays off in increased individual level and unit level performance. Investing in people can be the key that differentiates your organization from the competition.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
EMPOWERMENT Is Everything! What Does It Take? (IO Psychology)
Topic: Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, Performance
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (SEP/OCT, 2011)
Article: Antecedents and Consequences of Psychological and Team Empowerment in
Organizations: A Meta-Analytic Review
Authors: Scott E. Seibert, Gang Wang, and Stephen H. Courtright
Reviewed By: Mary Alice Crowe-Taylor, Ph.D.
Are you a manager or an HR professional who thinks that your workplace is a pretty good place to work for your employees? Think that your employees are empowered? Well, see how well your organization measure up against 30 years of research into what empowerment looks like!
This study combined over 150 samples of adult workers in organizational settings. It looked at the key factors needed for employees to be intrinsically motivated to perform their jobs well; that is, to be empowered. Needless to say, it indicates some key organizational conditions needed as well as other great outcomes (correlates) of empowerment in addition to better performance.
First, organizations that utilize high-performance managerial practices (like open information sharing; decentralization; participative decision-making; extensive training; contingent compensation) are on the right track to empower their employees. Those companies that provide material, social and psychological support for employees also are. When positive, trustworthy leaders who coach well and provide effective feedback are in charge, and the work is well-designed, the company also empowers!
What about the employees themselves? Empowered employees had more positive self-evaluations; they felt better about themselves. They felt that they were worthy, competent and capable at work. It didn’t matter whether they were male or female; had a certain level of education, or length of tenure, or a certain job level.
What about the great outcomes? Well, when employees felt empowered, not only did they perform better, they were more innovative. They also reported greater job satisfaction, greater organizational commitment and performed more organizational citizenship behaviors. They also felt less job strain and were less likely to leave their organizations.
This research also showed that empowerment works for teams in the same ways! That is, teams managed with high-performance systems, in a supportive manner with positive leadership and well-designed work, reported greater team performance.
To see an integrated model, based on 30 years of theory and research, that lists the antecedent conditions and the solid outcomes of empowerment, pull up this article and make it your wallpaper! Be positive and empower your employees if you’re not already! You won’t regret it, and your organization will be both more effective and more innovative. In today’s business world, empowerment is a must!
Seibert, S.E., Wang, G., and Courtright, S.H. (2011). Antecedents and Consequences of Psychological and Team Empowerment in Organizations: A Meta-Analytic Review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(5), 981-1003.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
When Normal Performance Isn’t Normal Performance
Topic: Performance, Performance Appraisal
Publication: Personnel Psychology
Article: The best and the rest: Revisiting the norm of normality of individual
performance
Authors: O’Boyle Jr., E., & Aguinis, H.
Reviewer: Neil Morelli
The gloves are off because O’Boyle and Aguinis have just challenged a perennial assumption of the performance literature. What kind of challenge you say? The authors advocate that the distribution of individual performance does not follow a normal, or Gaussian distribution, but rather a power, or Paretian distribution. On the surface this challenge may seem academic, but if true this conclusion could have serious implications for how performance, and the methods and tools used to assess it, are conceptualized and valued.
We are all too familiar with the inverted U-shaped normal distribution and its inferences that most performers hang out around the mean, while any extreme scores or deviation from this shape indicate bias or error. Instead, O’Boyle and Aguinis embrace extreme scores by arguing that the underlying distribution of performance more closely follows the ski jump-shaped Paretian distribution. In this distribution the tails are fatter and extend farther than the normal distribution, and extreme events are more accurately predicted. A helpful way to think about this distribution is the 80/20 rule common to economics—20% of performers are responsible for 80% of the results.
O’Boyle and Aguinis tested this assumption by collecting performance outcomes from 198 samples that spanned an eclectic mix of researchers, entertainers, politicians, and athletes. They compared chi-square values between models that forced the data to fit to a normal, Gaussian distribution and a power, Paretian distribution. They found that 93% of their samples fit to a Paretian distribution better than a Gaussian distribution; in other words, most of the performance outcomes were generated by a small group of superstar performers.
What does this mean for researchers? The generally accepted practice of removing outliers and defaulting to statistical tests that assume a normal distribution when studying performance outcomes may need to be rethought. Practitioners? Utility analysis, which shows the ROI of performance measurement, can be more accurate by working under this new assumption. Also, measures that track performance or are intended to select high performers may need to be readjusted to account for the “superstar effect.” Overall, the authors suggest that organizations would be well served by properly identifying, managing, compensating, and leveraging their elite performers.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
When Does Conflict Improve Team Performance? (IO Psychology)
Topic: Teams, Conflict, Culture, Performance
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (JAN 2012)
Article: Reaping the Benefits of Task Conflict in Teams: The Critical Role of Team Psychological Safety Climate
Authors: B.H. Bradley, B.E. Postlethwaite, A.C. Klotz, M.R. Hamdani, K.G. Brown
Reviewed By: Ben Sher
There’s a battle in the meeting room! Tempers flare, fists pound the table, insults are hurled, a chair flies through the air! No, this is probably not the best way to get things done. But what happens if team members engage in spirited debate that is strictly focused on the work at hand? Will that be productive? According to research by Bradley, Postlethwaite, Klotz, Hamdani, and Brown (2012), the answer depends on the type of team climate already in place.
First, the authors discuss the difference between relationship conflict and task conflict. Relationship conflict is when team members argue on a personal level, which only leads to tension and animosity. Task conflict is when team members express differences of opinion that relate only to work tasks. Past research has shown that task conflict may sometimes be beneficial and sometimes be detrimental to team performance.
So what determines when task conflict is productive? According to this study, it is the presence of something called psychological safety climate. The authors explain that safety climate occurs when team members are not afraid to speak up and offer dissenting opinions that challenge the status quo. If people believe that they will be attacked for expressing alternative viewpoints, the climate is said to have low psychological safety. In this case, the team could be in danger of groupthink, which is when reluctance to speak up leads to poor or catastrophic team decision making.
The authors found that under a psychologically safe climate, task conflict leads to better team performance. This is because team members feel secure with discussing differing viewpoints and they understand that these opinions are strictly related to the work at hand. Under these circumstances, the team will produce more ideas and engage in healthy debate to arrive at the best solution. When psychological safety is low, team members may interpret any type of dissent as personal and threatening, even when it is task related.
This study highlights the importance of maintaining a work environment that encourages people to speak up and does not punish people for offering alternative opinions. When this happens, conflict related to work tasks will become a conduit for improving team performance and not a potential pitfall.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
The Peril of Excess: Why Moderate Levels of Many Traits Might be Best (Human Resource Management)
Topic: Assessment, Performance, Selection, Human Resource Management
Publication: Perspectives on Psychological Science (JAN 2011)
Article: Too Much of a Good Thing: The Challenge and Opportunity of the Inverted U
Authors: Grant, A. M., & Schwartz, B.
Reviewed By: Thaddeus Rada
A common assumption in personnel selection practice (and research) in IO psychology is that increasingly high levels of desirable traits are always a good thing. For instance, the Big 5 personality trait conscientiousness has been found to be a good predictor of job performance, such that highly-conscientiousness employees tend to be the best performers. As such, our selection systems are typically designed to identify applicants who are highest on these positive traits, so that they can be selected into the organization.
However, some authors have suggested that very high levels of some traits may actually produce “diminishing returns” and be detrimental to performance. This is the position taken up by Adam Grant and Barry Schwartz in a recent paper that evaluates this phenomenon. Expanding on arguments that can be traced back to Aristotle, the authors point out that for many traits and characteristics, extremely low or high levels of such qualities (such that courage becomes cowardice or recklessness, etc.) can be detrimental to performance and optimal functioning.
Although Grant and Schwartz do not focus specifically on organizations or personnel selection, it is clear that their main ideas have relevance to human resource management. These ideas point to the fact that we may want to consider the possibility of curvilinear relationships between traits and performance, such that the highest performers fall somewhere in the middle of the continuum from low to high possession of a trait.
