Prior Related Work Experience and Job Performance: Role of personality Nishant Uppal*, Sushanta Kumar Mishra** and Neharika Vohra*** *Indian Institute of Management, Prabandh Nagar, Off Sitapur Road, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh 226 013, India. f10nishantu@iimidr.ac.in; nishant.uppal@gmail.com **Indian Institute of Management, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India ***Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India In contrast to the general notion, recent studies presented a negative or insignificant rela- tionship between prior related work experience (PRWE) and job performance (JP) and sug- gestively attributed the theoretically inconsistent results to individual factors. Using a sample of 688 sales persons in the insurance industry, the present study found support for the positive relationship between PRWE and JP. Further, the study found the moderation effect of personality factors on the above relationship. Implication of the study to the prac- titioners and the academia is discussed. 1. Introduction R ich economic growth and increased domestic entre- preneurship (World Bank Group, 2012) led by Indian economic reforms have presented unique challenges for the organizations such as enhanced em- ployee mobility and unstable employment relationship (ASSOCHAM 1 , 2012). Therefore, employee’s total work experience is highly likely to be accumulation of experi- ences from multiple organizations. Hiring of experienced employees by an organization is a natural outcome of such career patterns (Dokko, Wilk, & Rothbard, 2009). However, whether the work experience converts into employee’s performance is a matter of debate. Studies investigating the relationship between prior related work experience (PRWE) and job performance (JP) are broadly of two types: single-organization and multi-organization studies. Single-organization studies, apart from being contextual, present a positive (Carr, Pearson, Vest, & Boyar, 2006; Dragoni, Oh, Vankatwyk, & Tesluk, 2011; Hunter & Thatcher, 2007), insignificant (Castilla, 2005), as well as a negative (Dokko et al., 2009) relationship between PRWE and JP. Theorists have attributed these variances to different individual factors (Castilla, 2005; Dokko et al., 2009; Morrison & Brantner, 1992). Multi-organization studies (Finkelstein, 2003; Giniger, Dispenzieri, & Eisenberg, 1983; McDaniel, Schmidt, & Hunter, 1988; Motowidlo, Packard, & Manning, 1986; Quinones, Ford, & Teachout, 1995) mostly found pos- itive relationship between PRWE and JP. However, multi-organization studies seem to be constrained by the following issues. PRWE can be occupational or/and industry-specific (Dokko et al., 2009), whereas multi- organization studies have taken either one of them or total work experience as a study variable posing diffi- culty in generalizing the results. PRWE being a critical selection criterion warrants empirical ratification about its relationship with JP in current organization. The present work is a multi-organization study attempting to resolve this theoretical ambiguity. 2. Literature review 2.1. Prior related work experience and job performance Work experience is occupational and industry-specific rather than firm-specific and leads to improvements in employees’ job-related outcomes (Neal, 1995; Parent, 2000). It also leads to employees’ stability, serious- ness in work attitude, mature judgment, and reduced International Journal of Selection and Assessment Volume 22 Number 1 March 2014 © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main St., Malden, MA, 02148, USA