Polychronicity, Big Five Personality Dimensions, and Sales Performance

Hypothesized relations among polychronicity, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and supervisor performance ratings were developed and tested in a sample of 174 computer retail sales employees. Polychronicity was significantly related to supervisor ratings of customer service (r = .22), sales performance (r = .22), and overall performance (r = .23). Although Conscientiousness was unrelated to the performance outcomes, Extraversion was significantly related to supervisor ratings of customer service (r = .27), sales performance (r = .20), and overall performance (r = .25). In addition, polychronicity provided incremental validity above the contribution of Big Five personality dimensions in predicting supervisor ratings of customer service, sales performance, and overall performance. Future directions for research examining relations between polychronicity and job performance across different work settings are discussed.