Job performance, on the other hand, consists of the observable behaviors that people do in

their jobs that are relevant to the goals of the organization (Campbell, McHenry, & Wise,
1990). Job performance is of interest to organizations because of the importance of high
productivity in the workplace (Hunter & Hunter, 1984). Performance definitions should focus
on behaviors rather than outcomes (Murphy, 1989), because a focus on outcomes could lead
employees to find the easiest way to achieve the desired results, which is likely to be
detrimental to the organization because other important behaviors will not be performed.
Campbell, McCloy, Oppler, and Sager (1993) explain that performance is not the
consequence of behaviors, but rather the behaviors themselves. In other words, performance
consists of the behaviors that employees actually engage in which can be observed.
In contrast to the strictly behavioral definitions of job performance, Motowidlo, Borman, and
Schmit (1997) say that rather than solely the behaviors themselves, performance is behaviors
with an evaluative aspect. This definition is consistent with the dominant methods used to
measure job performance, namely performance ratings from supervisors and peers (Newman,
Kinney, & Farr, 2004). Although Motowidlo et al. (1997) emphasize this evaluative idea in
defining the performance domain, they still maintain that job performance is behaviors and
not results. One further element of performance is that the behaviors must be relevant to the
goals of the organization (Campbell et al., 1993).
Classic performance measures often operationalize performance as one general factor that is
thought to account for the total variance in outcomes. In their theory of performance,
Campbell et al. (1993) stated that a general factor does not provide an adequate conceptual
explanation of performance, and they outline eight factors that should account for all of the
behaviors that are encompassed by job performance (i.e., job-specific task proficiency, nonjob-specific task proficiency, written and oral communication task proficiency, demonstrating
effort,

maintaining

personal

discipline,

facilitating

peer

and

team

performance,

supervision/leadership, and management/administration). They therefore urge against the use

of overall performance ratings and suggest that studies should look at the eight dimensions of
performance separately, because the general factor cannot possibly represent the best fit
(Campbell et al., 1993, p. 38) when measuring performance.
Other researchers have stated that even though specific dimensions of performance can be
conceptualized, there is utility in using a single, general factor.

Using meta-analytic procedures to look at the relationships between overall performance and
its dimensions, Viswesvaran, Schmidt, and Ones (2005) found that approximately 60 percent
of the variance in performance ratings comes from the general factor. Further, this general
factor is not explainable by rater error (i.e., a halo effect). Thus, overwhelming empirical
evidence suggests that researchers should not dismiss the idea of a general factor, and that
unidimensional measures of overall performance may have an important place in theories of
job performance.
In the performance literature, a distinction is made between in role and extra-role
performance (Katz & Kahn, 1978). Extra-role performance is also conceptualized as
organizational citizenship behaviors (Smith, Organ, & Near, 1983). Based on this research,
Borman and Motowidlo (1993) suggested that performance can be divided into two parts,
task and contextual performance. Task performance involves the effectiveness with which
employees perform the activities that are formally part of their job and contribute to the
organizations technical core. Contextual performance comprises organizational activities that
are volitional, not prescribed by the job, and do not contribute directly to the technical core
(cf. Organ, 1997). Contextual performance includes activities such as helping, cooperating
with others, and volunteering, which are not formally part of the job but can be important for
all jobs. Although this distinction does exist, the current study focuses on task, or in-role, and
performance.

Many studies treat effort as part of job performance, which is defined broadly as an aggregate
construct of effort, skill, and outcomes that are important to the employee and outcomes that
are important to the firm (e.g., Behrman and Perreault 1984; Lusch and Serpkenci 1990;
Walker, Churchill, and Ford 1977). Similar to the work of Bagozzi (1978), a few studies use a
narrow definition of job performance based on actual sales or other objective productivity
measures. However, these studies do not include effort as a separate construct.
We argue that it is important to define effort as distinct from job performance. From the
perspective of an employee, job performance and effort are different. Effort is an input to
work, and job performance is an output from this effort. From a firms perspective, effort and
job performance may be difficult to distinguish, and effort is often inferred from the output
produced (the possibility of high effort and low output or low effort and high output is often
not considered).

This may explain the inclusion of effort in the definition of job performance. Some studies
include work motivation as an antecedent to job satisfaction, but motivation (I want to work
hard) is not the same as exerted effort (I did work hard and spent a lot of time and energy).
The implications of either neglecting effort or considering it a part of job performance for the
empirically observed relationship between job performance and job satisfaction can be
significant. If effort is costly for an employee, ignoring effort can bias the estimated effect of
job performance on job satisfaction (because effort should increase job performance). Failing
to control for effort induces a negative spurious correlation, which may reduce or even hide a
true positive effect of job performance on job satisfaction. Similarly, by including effort in
the measure of job performance, negative and positive aspects can nullify each other, yielding
an effect for job performance that is again biased toward insignificance.

The relationship iv and dv

Very little research has been done examining the relationship between quality of life and job
performance (Weiss & MacDermid, 2003). By job performance I am referring to employee
behaviours that contribute to the goals of the organization (Campbell, 1990). The lack of
research on this topic is exemplified by the fact that Kossek and Ozekis (1999) meta-analysis
found only three studies that had quantitatively measured the relationship between workfamily conflict and work performance. The situation has not changed much since Kossek and
Ozekis (1999) study. Despite the lack of research that has been conducted on the link
between work-life conflict and performance, these two constructs have typically been
theorized to be related (Glasser, 1996, as cited in Weiss & MacDermid, 2003). However, the
research that has been conducted on the relationship between work-life conflict/work-life
balance and performance has primarily used non-military populations. Accordingly, the
findings that are discussed in this section focus on the relationship between work-life
conflict/work-life balance and performance in non-military populations. As well, a model
explaining how quality of life issues such as work-life conflict can affect military-related job
performance is proposed.
Some initial research (Yardley, 1996) investigating the relationship between work-family
conflict and work-related outcomes found that family interference with work was related to a
variety of work-related outcomes, including reduced job performance. Work interference with
family, on the other hand, was related to absenteeism and turnover but not to job
performance. Another study conducted with female nurses indicated that while conflict due to
family interfering with work was negatively related to self-rated job performance, conflict
due to work interfering with family was positively related to self-rated job performance
(Bronneberg, 1996). However, neither type of conflict was related to supervisors evaluations
of an employees job performance. Although self-reported indicators of WFC and FWC were
used in both of these studies they do not appear to be multi-dimensional in nature, i.e.,
breaking each type of conflict down in terms of time conflict, role-strain, and so on.
One of the only comprehensive reviews to be undertaken on the relationship between
workfamily conflict and a variety of work-related, non-work related and stress-related
outcomes was conducted by Allen et al. (2000). On average, a weak relationship was
obtained between work-tofamily conflict and work-related performance (average r = -.12).

Overall, work-to-family conflict was inconsistently related to performance (Allen et al., 2000;
Kossek & Ozeki, 1999).
They did not assess the relationship between family-to-work conflict and job performance.
The findings from the meta-analysis conducted by Kossek and Ozeki (1999) indicate that
there was a slight to moderate relationship between family-to-work interference and job
performance (i.e., the greater the interference, the poorer the performance). However, there
was a small, close to non-existent relationship between work-to-family interference and job
performance (i.e., the confidence interval for the relationship between these two variables
included a value of zero).