Handbook of Principles of Organizational Behavior - Soltanieh ...

SELECT ON CONSCIENTIOUSNESS AND EMOTIONAL STABILITY
A major reason to select employees on conscientiousness and emotional stability is the
remarkable breadth of work behaviors they predict. Importantly, many of these work behaviors
relate to overall organizational effectiveness yet are not typically included in measures of
overall job performance; moreover, they are not predicted as well by intelligence. In order
to understand the behaviors that conscientiousness and emotional stability predict, it is useful
to distinguish among the three major components of job performance: task behaviors,
citizenship behaviors and counterproductive behaviors (Rotundo and Sackett, 2002 ). Task
performance refers to the core behaviors of a job and includes those that (directly or indirectly)
contribute to the production of a good or the provision of a service. These behaviors
are usually captured by overall performance ratings or by objective measures of performance
such as total sales during the quarter or number of new accounts opened. Organizational
citizenship performance, also called contextual performance (Borman, Penner, Allen, and
Motowidlo, 2001 ), refers to behavior that contributes to the goals of the organization by
contri buting to its social and psychological environment (such as providing assistance to
co - workers who need help). Counterproductive work performance consists of a broad array
of voluntary behaviors that harm the well - being of the organization or its employees and
includes behaviors such as violence on the job, racial slurs, theft, unsafe behavior, and misuse
of information, time, or resources (Berry, Ones, and Sackett, 2007 ).
The studies discussed above clearly demonstrate that conscientiousness and emotional
stability predict overall job performance and the results are quite robust and generalize to
nearly all jobs. In fact, Hurtz and Donovan ( 2000 ) reported that of the Big Five personality
traits, conscientiousness and emotional stability have the highest relationship with task
performance. Thus, whether predicting overall job performance or a narrower defi nition
of task performance, conscientiousness and emotional stability emerge as the two critical
personality traits that determine the employees ’ technical proficiency and performance
completing specifi c job duties.
Citizenship and (non - ) counterproductive work behaviors
In addition to predicting the task performance component of jobs, conscientiousness and
emotional stability also predict citizenship and counterproductive work behaviors. This
represents a difference between intelligence on the one hand and conscientiousness and
emotional stability on the other, as there is little evidence that intelligence predicts citizenship
and counterproductive work behaviors. Citizenship behaviors include the willingness
to pitch in and help during emergency or overload situations, to take on tasks no one else is
willing to do, and to go beyond prescribed role requirements to get the job done. Borman
et al. ( 2001 ) showed that conscientiousness (especially dependability) and to a lesser extent
emotional stability predict citizenship behaviors and these correlations are higher than
those typically reported for task behaviors. In another meta - analysis, Hurtz and Donovan
( 2000 ) found these same two traits relate to citizenship behavior through dedication to the
job and interpersonal facilitation. Job dedication includes measures of persistence, reliability,
and commitment to goals, while interpersonal facilitation refers to interpersonal
relationships at work (e.g. in work teams), cooperation, being courteous and a team player.
Thus conscientiousness and emotional stability influence citizenship behaviors at work
through their relationship to job dedication and interpersonal facilitation.
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