The Effects of Citizenship Performance, Task Performance, and Rating Format on Performance Judgments

The current study examined the effects of citizenship performance, task performance, and rating format on overall and task performance ratings. Levels of citizenship performance (high, medium, low), task performance (high, medium, low), and rating format (inclusion or exclusion of citizenship performance) were experimentally manipulated in a 3x3x2 between-subjects full factorial design. Ratings were provided by 360 undergraduate psychology students evaluating experimentally developed supervisory logs of first line financial managers. Targets\u27 levels of citizenship and task performance were positively related to raters\u27 judgments of overall and task performance. The prediction that this relationship would be moderated by task performance level was not supported. Furthermore, replicating the findings of J. M. Werner (1994), task performance ratings, assigned to targets with high levels of citizenship performance, displayed significantly more halo than ratings assigned to targets with low or medium levels of citizenship performance. Rating format did not influence raters\u27 judgments of the targets\u27 overall or task performance. Our findings indicate that including OCBs in job performance assessment fails to increase the accuracy of performance ratings. Study implications and limitations are discussed