Lifespan Perspectives on Job Performance, Performance Appraisal/Management and Creative Performance

Abstract The aging workforce continues to be of interest to researchers and organizational decision makers alike. In the present chapter, we discuss the extent to which age is associated with the complex domain of work performance and how lifespan approaches can enrich our understanding of the motivation and performance of employees as they move through their careers. Two theories—Selection, Optimization, and Compensation Theory (SOC) and Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST)—provide the framework within which we consider how lifespan processes of adaptability including selection, optimization, compensation, and occupational future time perspective (OFTP) inform research on age and individual job performance and creative performance. In the chapter, we review the multiple facets of job performance (e.g., task, contextual, creative, and counterproductive) and the two major individual predictors of work performance, employee motivation and ability. Each of these job facets and predictors are discussed in relation to research on older workers. Through the lens of SOC and SST, we discuss the importance of research that links such lifespan processes as goal selection, work feedback, and motivation to performance appraisal and performance management. Finally, we close with a discussion of how emerging themes from both the work performance and lifespan theory informs performance research both theoretically and as it is practiced in organizations.