The Relationship Between Personality Traits and Contextual Performance: A Study

Abstract

Although the way we work today is very different from what we worked on twenty years ago, effective management of employee performance is still a key to organizational success. Our rewards and recognition systems still focus primarily on task completion and goal achievement. But there is another side to employee performance that is equally important but often unrecognized and unrewarded. Contextual performance refers to activities that do not task or goal-specific but that make individuals, teams, and organizations more effective and successful. Contextual performance includes cooperating and helping others, voluntarily performing extra-role activities, persevering with enthusiasm and extra determination to complete assignments successfully, defending the organization’s goals, and adhering to organizational policies even when this is inconvenient. The research focuses on the relationships between personality traits and contextual performance. The dimensions of Personality traits are based on the Big 5 personality traits: Openness, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Extroversion being positive traits and Neuroticism being the sole negative trait. In this research, the effects of Personality traits on contextual performance are to be analyzed.