Journal of Organizational Behavior J. Organiz. Behav. 23, 911–926 (2002) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/job.172 Interactive effects of personality and organizational politics on contextual performance L. A. WITT 1 , K. MICHELE KACMAR 2 *, DAWN S. CARLSON 3 AND SUZANNE ZIVNUSKA 4 1 Department of Management, University of New Orleans, New Orleans, U.S.A 2 Charles A. Rovetta Professor of Management, Department of Management, Florida State University, Tallahassee, U.S.A 3 Department of Management, Baylor University, Waco, U.S.A 4 Department of Management, Florida State University, Tallahassee, U.S.A Summary The authors explored the process of evaluating contextual performance in the context of a politically charged atmosphere. They hypothesized that the negative relationship between per- ceptions of organizational politics and contextual performance is weaker among workers high in three of the Big Five model of personality dimensions—agreeableness, extraversion, and conscientiousness. Data were collected from a matched sample of 540 supervisors and sub- ordinates employed in the private sector. Results indicated that the interaction of politics and the personality dimension of agreeableness explained a significant incremental amount of var- iance in the interpersonal facilitation facet of contextual performance. These findings demon- strate the need to consider both the situation and the person as antecedents of contextual performance. Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Introduction Campbell (1990) argued that job performance consists of dimensions reflecting not only tasks but also interpersonal and motivational components. Motowidlo and his colleagues (e.g., Borman & Motowidlo, 1993; Motowidlo, Borman, & Van Scotter, 1997; Van Scotter & Motowidlo, 1996) distinguished between core task and contextual performance as two virtually universal dimensions of overall job per- formance. Core task performance refers to outcomes of the substantive tasks that differentiate one occu- pation from another. Contextual performance refers to outcomes of behaviors that are needed to support the social fabric of the organization. These behaviors are not unique to a specific job but rather are inher- ent in all jobs. As such, contextual performance has the potential to be a key construct. Received 22 February 2001 Revised 1 March 2002 Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 10 July 2002 *Correspondence to: K. Michele Kacmar, Department of Management, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1110, U.S.A. E-mail: mkacmar@garnet.acns.fsu.edu