Does autonomy moderate the relationships of task performance and interpersonal facilitation, with overall effectiveness?

Abstract

Employees contribute to organizational effectiveness in a variety of ways that go beyond job specific task performance. Organizational citizenship behavior and contextual performance describe behaviors that are discretionary, but still important. Contextual performance supports the organization’s social and interpersonal infrastructure. Research suggests employees’ overall effectiveness ratings are influenced by both task performance and contextual performance. If it is truly discretionary, contextual performance should contribute more to overall effectiveness when workers have more autonomy. This study explores the relationship between autonomy, task performance and interpersonal facilitation, a dimension of contextual performance. Results for N = 135 air force technicians suggest perceived autonomy moderates the relationship between interpersonal facilitation and overall effectiveness. Autonomy did not moderate the relationship between task performance and overall effectiveness.

Keywords:

• Contextual performance
• citizenship behavior
• job performance
• task performance
• interpersonal facilitation
• autonomy

Disclosure statement

There are no conflicts of interest to declare for this paper.

Funding statement

This research was not supported by any grants or other external funding sources.