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Chapter 2: Performance and
Commitment
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Copyright © 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Performance and Commitment
• Job performance is the value of the set of employee
behaviors that contribute, either positively or
negatively, to organizational goal accomplishment.
» Includes behaviors that are within the control of the
employees.
• Organizational commitment is the desire on the part
of an employee to remain a member of the
organization.
• A “Good Performer”
» Task performance
» Citizenship behavior
» Counterproductive behavior
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Task Performance
• Task performance includes employee behaviors
that are directly involved in the transformation of
organizational resources into the goods or
services that the organization produces.
» Routine task performance involves well-known
responses to demands that occur in a normal, routine,
or otherwise predictable way.
» Adaptive task performance, or more commonly
“adaptability,” involves employee responses to task
demands that are novel, unusual, or, at the very least,
unpredictable.
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Job Analysis
• Many organizations identify task performance
behaviors by conducting a job analysis.
» A list of all the activities involved in a job is generated.
– Observation, interview, questionnaire
» Each activity on this list is rated by “subject matter
experts” according to things like the importance and
frequency of the activity.
» The activities that are rated highly in terms of their
importance and frequency are retained and used to
define task performance.
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Occupational Information Network
• The Occupational Information Network (or
O*NET) is an online database that includes,
among other things, the characteristics of most
jobs in terms of tasks, behaviors, and the
required knowledge, skills, and abilities
(http://online.onetcenter.org/).
» Task information from the database should be
supplemented with information regarding behaviors
that support the organization’s values and strategy.
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Citizenship Behavior
• Voluntary employee activities that may or may not be
rewarded but that contribute to the organization by
improving the overall quality of the setting in which work
takes place.
» Interpersonal
– Helping, courtesy, sportsmanship
» Organizational
– Voice, civic virtue, boosterism
• Relevant in virtually any job, regardless of the particular
nature of its tasks, and there are clear benefits of these
behaviors in terms of the effectiveness of work units and
organizations.
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Interpersonal Citizenship Behavior
• Behaviors that benefit coworkers and colleagues
and involve assisting, supporting, and
developing other organizational members in a
way that goes beyond normal job expectations.
» Helping involves assisting coworkers who have
heavy workloads, etc.
» Courtesy refers to keeping coworkers informed about
matters that are relevant to them.
» Sportsmanship involves maintaining a good attitude
with coworkers, even when they’ve done something
annoying.
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Organizational Citizenship
Behaviors
• Behaviors that benefit the larger organization by
supporting and defending the company, working
to improve its operations, and being especially
loyal to it.
» Voice involves speaking up and offering constructive
suggestions for change.
» Civic virtue requires participating in the company’s
operations at a deeper-than-normal level
» Boosterism means representing the organization in a
positive way when out in public, away from the office,
and away from work.
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Counterproductive Behaviors
• Counterproductive behaviors are employee
behaviors that intentionally hinder organizational
goal accomplishment.
» Property deviance refers to behaviors that harm the
organization’s assets and possessions.
» Production deviance is also directed against the
organization but focuses specifically on reducing the
efficiency of work output.
» Political deviance refers to behaviors that intentionally
disadvantage other individuals rather than the larger
organization.
» Personal aggression refers to hostile verbal and
physical actions directed toward other employees.
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Property and Production Deviance
• Property Deviance
» Sabotage represents the purposeful destruction of
physical equipment, organizational processes, or
company products.
» Theft represents another form of property deviance and
can be just as expensive as sabotage (if not more).
• Production Deviance
» Wasting resources is the most common form of
production deviance, when employees use too many
materials or too much time to do too little work.
» Substance abuse is the abuse of drugs or alcohol
before coming to work or while on the job.
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Political Deviance and Personal
Aggression
• Political Deviance
» Gossiping is having casual conversations about other
people in which the facts are not confirmed as true.
» Incivility represents communication that is rude,
impolite, discourteous, and lacking in good manners.
• Personal Aggression
» Harassment occurs when employees are subjected to
unwanted physical contact or verbal remarks from a
colleague.
» Abuse occurs when an employee is assaulted or
endangered in such a way that physical and
psychological injuries may occur.
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Counterproductive Behavior, Cont’d
• There is evidence that people who engage in
one form of counterproductive behavior also
engage in others.
» Represent a pattern of behavior rather than isolated
incidents
• Counterproductive behavior is relevant to any
job. It doesn’t matter what the job entails; there
are going to be things to steal, resources to
waste, and people to be uncivil toward.
• It is often surprising which employees engage in
counterproductive behavior.
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Organizational Commitment
• Organizational commitment influences
whether an employee stays a member of the
organization (is retained) or leaves to pursue
another job (turns over).
• Employees who are not committed to their
organizations engage in withdrawal behavior,
defined as a set of actions that employees
perform to avoid the work situation— behaviors
that may eventually culminate in quitting the
organization.
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Types of Commitment
• Affective commitment is a desire to remain a member of
an organization due to an emotional attachment to, and
involvement with, that organization.
» You stay because you want to.
• Continuance commitment is a desire to remain a
member of an organization because of an awareness of
the costs associated with leaving it.
» You stay because you need to.
• Normative commitment is a desire to remain a member
of an organization due to a feeling of obligation.
» You stay because you ought to.
• Focus of commitment refers to the various people,
places, and things that can inspire a desire to remain a
member of an organization.
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Affective Commitment
• Employees who feel a sense of affective
commitment identify with the organization,
accept that organization’s goals and
values, and are more willing to exert extra
effort on behalf of the organization.
» The erosion model suggests that employees with fewer bonds
will be most likely to quit the organization.
» The social influence model suggests that employees who have
direct linkages with “leavers” will themselves become more likely
to leave.
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Continuance Commitment
• Continuance commitment exists when there
is a profit associated with staying and a
cost associated with leaving.
• Tends to create a more passive form of
loyalty.
» Increases to continuance commitment
– Total amount of investment (in terms of time, effort,
energy, etc.) an employee has made in mastering
his work role or fulfilling his organizational duties.
– Lack of employment alternatives
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Normative Commitment
• Normative commitment exists when there is a
sense that staying is the “right” or “moral” thing to
do.
• The sense that people should stay with their
current employers may result from personal work
philosophies or more general codes of right and
wrong developed over the course of their lives.
• Build a sense of obligation-based commitment
among employees
» Create an obligation that the employee is in the
organization’s debt
» Becoming a particularly charitable organization
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Withdrawal Behaviors
• Exit is an active, destructive response by which an
individual either ends or restricts organizational
membership.
• Voice is an active, constructive response in which
individuals attempt to improve the situation.
• Loyalty is a passive, constructive response that
maintains public support for the situation while the
individual privately hopes for improvement.
• Neglect is a passive, destructive response in which
interest and effort in the job declines.
• Taken together, the exit–voice–loyalty–neglect
framework captures most of the possible responses to a
negative work event.
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Task Performance and
Organizational Commitment
• Stars possess high commitment and high performance and
are held up as role models for other employees.
• Citizens possess high commitment and low task
performance but perform many of the voluntary “extra-role”
activities that are needed to make the organization function
smoothly.
• Lone wolves possess low levels of organizational
commitment but high levels of task performance and are
motivated to achieve work goals for themselves, not
necessarily for their company.
• Apathetics possess low levels of both organizational
commitment and task performance and merely exert the
minimum level of effort needed to keep their jobs.
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Psychological Withdrawal
• Psychological withdrawal consists of actions that provide a
mental escape from the work environment. (“warm-chair attrition”)
» Daydreaming occurs when an employee appears to be working but
is actually distracted by random thoughts or concerns.
» Socializing is verbal chatting about non-work topics that goes on in
cubicles and offices or at the mailbox or vending machines.
» Looking busy is the intentional desire on the part of the employee to
look like he or she is working, even when not performing work tasks.
» Moonlighting is using work time and resources to complete
something other than their job duties, such as assignments for
another job.
» Cyberloafing is using Internet, e-mail, and instant messaging
access for their personal enjoyment rather than work duties.
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Physical Withdrawal
• Physical withdrawal consists of actions that
provide a physical escape, whether short term or
long term, from the work environment.
» Tardiness is the tendency to arrive at work late (or
leave work early).
» Long breaks involve longer-than-normal lunches,
soda breaks, coffee breaks, and so forth that provide
a physical escape from work.
» Missing meetings occurs when employees neglect
important work functions while away from the office.
» Absenteeism occurs when employees miss an entire
day of work.
» Quitting is voluntarily leaving the organization.
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Psychological and Physical
Withdrawal, Cont’d
• Independent forms model of withdrawal argues that the
various withdrawal behaviors are uncorrelated with one
another, occur for different reasons, and fulfill different
needs on the part of employees.
• Compensatory forms model of withdrawal argues that the
various withdrawal behaviors negatively correlate with one
another—that doing one means you’re less likely to do
another.
• Progression model of withdrawal argues that the various
withdrawal behaviors are positively correlated: The
tendency to daydream or socialize leads to the tendency to
come in late or take long breaks, which leads to the
tendency to be absent or quit.
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