We investigated how state neuroticism and state conscientiousness related to momentary task performance and tested whether these relationships were affected by the extent to which a person varies in his level of state neuroticism/conscientiousness across situations. We hypothesized that state neuroticism relates negatively, while state conscientiousness relates positively to momentary task performance. Moreover, for both personality dimensions, we expected the state personality-momentary task performance relationship to be stronger for employees who behave, feel, and think more consistently across situations. These hypotheses were tested using a 10-day experience sampling study in a large financial institution. Multilevel regression analyses revealed that state neuroticism related negatively and state conscientiousness positively to momentary task performance. Moreover, the relationship between state conscientiousness and momentary task performance was stronger for people lower in situational within-person conscientiousness variability. From a theoretical point of view, our findings suggest that personality states relate to momentary task performance and that this relationship is stronger for people low in situational within-person variability. From a practical point of view, they emphasize the importance of taking into account an employee's state personality levels and the variability herein, in addition to assessing his/her overall trait level of personality. Practitioner pointsApart from the stable between-person differences in personality (i.e., personality traits), a recruiter should also gain insight into situation-related fluctuations in the candidate's personality states, which will allow the recruiter to determine how this candidate will perform in these situations. Recruiters should weigh the information they get from personality assessments differently for people showing low levels of situational within-person (personality) variability compared to those who are high in situational within-person (personality) variability.The main idea underlying the use of personality assessments in an I/O context is that the position of an individual on a particular personality dimension is predictive of general indices of job performance (Tett, Jackson, & Rothstein, 1991). Although the parsimony of the underlying idea makes it an attractive one, meta-analytical research has repeatedly

Although the personality-performance relationship has been studied extensively, most studies focused on the relationship between between-person differences in the Big Five personality dimensions and between-person differences in job performance. The current paper extends this research in two ways. First, we build on core self-evaluations (CSEs): an alternative, broad personality dimension that has proven to be a good predictor of job performance. Second, we tested concurrent and lagged within-person relationships between CSEs and task performance, organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB), and counterproductive work behaviour (CWB). To this end, we conducted two experience sampling studies; the first one assessing the relationship between state CSEs and levels of momentary task performance and OCB, and a second study in which employees reported on their level of state CSEs and momentary CWB. Results showed that there is substantial within-person variability in CSEs and that these within-person fluctuations relate to within-person variation in task performance, OCB, and CWB towards the organization, and CWB towards the individual. Moreover, CSEs prospectively predicted within-person differences in task performance and CWB towards the organization, whereas the reversed effect did not hold. These findings tentatively suggest that state CSEs predict performance, rather than the other way around.Keywords: state core self-evaluations; task performance; organizational citizenship behaviour; counterproductive work behaviour; within-person variabilityIn the domain of work and organizational psychology, the personality-performance relationship has been studied extensively (Barrick & Mount, 1991;Barrick, Mount, & Judge, 2001). The primary reason is that predicting employee performance from stable, person-related characteristics (i.e., personality traits) is attractive from both a practical and a theoretical point of view. With respect to the former, a strong, reliable relationship between personality and performance paves the way for using parsimonious personality assessment instruments in, for example, employee selection procedures. Regarding the latter, it yields useful insights into the determinants of job performance and the consequences of personality at work.Up until now, most studies on the personality-performance link have focused on how individual differences on each of the Big Five personality dimensions related to individual differences in general indices of work performance (Barrick & Mount, 1991;Hurtz & Donovan, 2000;Neal, Yeo, Koy, & Xiao, 2012). Recently, however, this approach has been called into question. The first reason is that awareness is growing that performance is not static, but rather episodic in nature (Beal, Weiss, Barros, & MacDermid, 2005;Debusscher, Hofmans, & De Fruyt, 2014, 2015, which means that it not only varies between individuals, but also changes over time within an individual. As a result, it becomes important to study not only the stable, trait-like antecedents of performance, but ...

Previous studies have shown that conscientiousness facets incrementally predict performance above and beyond trait conscientiousness. In the present paper we investigate whether this finding also holds at the daily level. We conducted a ten-day experience sampling study assessing state conscientiousness in the morning and task performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in the afternoon. Using multilevel bi-factor modeling we show that general state conscientiousness positively predicts both task performance and OCB. Moreover, self-discipline and deliberation showed incremental predictive validity above and beyond overall state conscientiousness in the prediction of daily task performance, whereas none of the state conscientiousness facets uniquely predicted daily OCB levels.

A daily diary and two experience sampling studies were carried out to investigate curvilinearity of the within-person relationship between state neuroticism and task performance, as well as the moderating effects of within-person variation in momentary job demands (i.e., work pressure and task complexity). In one, results showed that under high work pressure, the state neuroticism–task performance relationship was best described by an exponentially decreasing curve, whereas an inverted U-shaped curve was found for tasks low in work pressure, while in another study, a similar trend was visible for task complexity. In the final study, the state neuroticism–momentary task performance relationship was a linear one, and this relationship was moderated by momentary task complexity. Together, results from all three studies showed that it is important to take into account the moderating effects of momentary job demands because within-person variation in job demands affects the way in which state neuroticism relates to momentary levels of task performance. Specifically, we found that experiencing low levels of state neuroticism may be most beneficial in high demanding tasks, whereas more moderate levels of state neuroticism are optimal under low momentary job demands.

Whereas several studies have demonstrated that core self-evaluations (CSE)–or one’s appraisals about one’s own self-worth, capabilities, and competences–relate to job outcomes, less is known about the mechanisms underlying these relationships. In the present study, we address this issue by examining the role of within- and between-person variation in CSE in the relationship between work pressure and task performance. We hypothesized that (a) work pressure relates to task performance in a curvilinear way, (b) state CSE mediates the curvilinear relationship between work pressure and task performance, and (c) the relationship between work pressure and state CSE is moderated by trait CSE. Our hypotheses were tested via a 10-day daily diary study with 55 employees in which trait CSE was measured at baseline, while work pressure, task performance, and state CSE were assessed on a daily basis. Bayesian multilevel path analysis showed that work pressure affects task performance via state CSE, with state CSE increasing as long as the employee feels that (s)he is able to handle the work pressure, while it decreases when the level of work pressure exceeds the employees’ coping abilities. Moreover, we found that for people low on trait CSE, the depleting effect of work pressure via state CSE happens for low levels of work pressure, while for people high in trait CSE the depleting effect is located at high levels of work pressure. Together, our findings suggest that the impact of work pressure on task performance is driven by a complex interplay of between- and within-person differences in CSE.