Defining what sorts of behavior constitute poor or unacceptable performance is not a simple matter. Any behavior, like the time an employee arrives at work, must be evaluated with respect to some standard or expected level of performance before it can be labeled good or poor. Supervisors may differ as to how large a deviation from the standard can be tolerated depending on the situation. The same supervisor may tolerate different deviations at different times for different employees.

Furthermore, employees and supervisors may interpret performance differently either because they apply different standards to the same behavior, or because they selectively attend to different aspects of the same behavior. In short, what constitutes poor performance is not clear-cut; it depends on the standards established for performance and how those standards are applied.

Poor performance can also include other counterproductive or deviant workplace behaviors, which violates significant organizational norms, and threatens the well-being of the organization, its members, or both. Another line of research demonstrates that a common approach to measuring task behaviors can be applied to derive and then measure ethical behaviors as well. This has important implications for organizational efforts aimed at clearly delineating expectations.