Adaptability in the Workplace: Selecting an Adaptive Workforce

Although models have been published in the literature covering various aspects of the job performance domain (e.g., technical performance, contextual performance), researchers have recently recognized a void in these models and have called for their expansion to include adaptive performance components (Campbell, 1999; Hesketh & Neal, 1999; London & Mone, 1999; Murphy & Jackson, 1999). Toward this end, Pulakos, Arad, Donovan, and Plamondon (2000) developed a taxonomy of adaptive job performance similar to the model of job performance developed by Campbell, McCloy, Oppler, and Sager (1993). This model contained eight dimensions of adaptive job performance. Pulakos et al. began their research with a review of various literatures on adaptability and identified six different aspects of adaptive performance. These are shown in Table 1, along with the research references from which they were derived. The diversity of substantive areas that are represented in the research articles cited in Table 1 is a testament to the perceived importance of adaptability across a number of behavioral disciplines. Although the idea that adaptive performance is multi-dimensional was reasonable based on the wide range of behaviors “adaptability” has encompassed in the literature (for example, adapting to organizational change, different cultures, different people, new technology), no published research prior to Pulakos et al. had systematically defined or empirically examined specific dimensions of adaptive job performance. Pulakos et al. conducted two studies to refine the six-dimension model of individual adaptive job performance derived from the literature. In Study 1, over 1,000 critical incidents from 21 different jobs were content analyzed, yielding an eight-dimension taxonomy of adaptive performance. That is, the critical incident analysis produced two additional adaptive performance dimensions that are shown at the bottom of Table 1.