Employee Adaptive Performance and Its Antecedents: Review and Synthesis

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to critically review current studies on employees’ adaptive performance and to integrate the findings to provide insights on how to develop employees’ adaptability. It also aims to identify gaps in the research to guide future studies on adaptive performance in the field of human resource development. By reviewing 34 empirical studies on adaptive performance published between 1999 and 2016, we identified 22 antecedents of adaptive performance at the individual (nine), job (six), group (three), and organizational (four) levels. Our analyses reveal that a significant amount of research has focused more on individual characteristics than on other aspects affecting employees’ high adaptive performance. Discussion, implications, and recommendations for future research are elaborated.