Chapter 10: Keeping Women in Their Place?: The Joint Influence of Target Gender and Interpersonal Hierarchy Expectation on Contextual Performance Requirements

Individuals are hired because their competencies match requirements for a specific job or position. Yet task-related behaviors are not the only ones expected on the job. Increasingly, employees display nontask related behaviors, contributing to contextual performance (Borman & Motowidlo, 1993). Defined formally, contextual performance supports “the organizational, social, and psychological environment in which technical core must function” (Borman & Motowidlo, 1993, p. 73). Such behaviors are significant for the individual employees, provided that managers account for them when rating their subordinates’ overall performance and when providing subsequent rewards (Allen, 2006; Allen & Rush, 1998; Whiting, Podsakoff, & Pierce, 2008; Whiting, Maynes, Podsakoff, & Podsakoff, 2012), and given that they are consequential organizational outcomes (Podsakoff, Whiting, Podsakoff, & Blume, 2009).