Adaptability and Intraindividual Variation in Sales Outcomes : Exploring the Interactive Effects of Personality and Environmental Opportunity

Many practices in the field of industrial-organizational psychology assume that individual performance is stable across time; yet, little is actually known about the extent to which performance varies within individuals. We specifically address this issue by exploring the longitudinal influence of a situational opportunity (referrals received from the central office) on intraindividual performance outcomes of sales representatives. We also explore conscientiousness and openness to experience as traits that explain variation in adaptation to changes in referrals. Our results show that more weekly variation in individual performance resides within individuals than between individuals. A majority of this variance is explained by the situational opportunity of referrals. Further, the positive relationship between referrals and outcomes is stronger for sales representatives high on conscientiousness, but weaker for representatives high on openness to experience