Adaptability And Adaptive Performance

Over the past few decades, in response to rapid changing technological, social, political, and economic environments, organizations have recognized the importance of developing adaptability with employees to maximize flexibility and efficiency in these changing and varied environments. However, there have been no clear definitions of adaptability presented in the psychological literature, and is thus difficult to measure, predict adaptive performance effectively. The purpose of this paper is to review the concept of adaptability and especially adaptive job performance, and then investigate the possible predictors of adaptive job performance. The review process identified different definitions and names of adaptability such as adaptive performance, adaptive behaviors, flexibility, and proficiency, and their sub-dimensions. Furthermore, several important measurements for adaptability or adaptive performance have been discussed. First, Big Five personality traits measures have been used as predictors of adaptive performance, and then a mixed measurement of cognitive ability and Big Five personality traits, the discovery of Campbell Model, and a development of Eight-Dimension Taxonomy of adaptive job performance, and recently, some new adaptability measures based on Eight-Dimension Taxonomy have been investigated in the review. The implications for future research and practices in job analysis, selection, performance appraisal and training are also discussed in this review.