A THEORY OF INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES IN TASK AND CONTEXTUAL PERFORMANCE

This article describes a theory of job performance that assumes that j ob performance is behavioral, episodic, evaluative, and multidimension al. It defines job performance as the aggregated value to the organiza tion of the discrete behavioral episodes that an individual performs o ver a standard interval of time. It uses the distinction between task and contextual performance to begin to identify and define underlying dimensions of the behavioral episodes that make up the performance dom ain. The theory predicts that individual differences in personality an d cognitive ability variables, in combination with learning experience s, lead to variability in knowledge, skills, and work habits that medi ate effects of personality and cognitive ability on job performance. A n especially important aspect of this theory is that it predicts that the kinds of knowledge, skills, work habits, and traits that are assoc iated with task performance are different from the kinds that are asso ciated with contextual performance.