Contents

Executive Summary
The project aims at the identification of the most important factors that are relevant to job performance for a professional employed as a trainer in the Adventure Sports sector. Through this, we plan to identify the relevant concepts of motivation, personality, leadership and team behavior etc which play a role in these organizations and the impact of these parameters on the performance of personnel employed in this sector.
The study was divided into two phases. In the first phase, through extensive interviews, we identified three variables: passion for exploration, independence and recognition as having the maximum impact on the performance of an adventure sports professional. In the second phase, surveys were conducted on a larger sample of people and statistical analyses done to validate the hypotheses that were formed in the first phase. On the basis of this, it was found that the impact the variable passion for exploration has on job performance is completely explained by the three performance dimensions while the other two variables are partially supported.

1. Introduction
Adventure Sports refers broadly to all those activities with a certain level of inherent danger and involves a lot of physical exertion from the part of the participants. It involves a wide variety of activities ranging from bungee jumping and water sports to trekking in the Himalayas. From being considered an activity that is aimed at having occasional fun, adventure sports today is being pursued as a serious career option by many.
As the tourism industry in India is on an upswing, foreigners as well as Indians flock to seek adventure. Given the geographic diversity of India, it is possible to offer adventure activities throughout the year. This has led to an increasing demand for trained professionals in this field. The industry has grown by leaps and bounds from the largely unorganized sector into the organized side, aided by the improved infrastructure and accessibility. The career options today are vast and varied and range across trekking, mountaineering, out bound training facilitators and the like[1].
A notable challenge that people involved in such professions face is the kind of hazards that they might face in the line of their work. Accidents, though few, do happen because of various reasons such as failure of safety equipment, environmental hazards or even wrong judgment in high pressure situations. Most of these reasons cannot be manually controlled and it is with this understanding of the underlying risk that people choose such this profession.
What makes people employed in this sector perform well despite placing themselves in the line of danger? Such factors would be extremely different from the factors that would be seen in a run-of-the-mill job. It is in this context that we have chosen this exciting industry as the subject of our study.

2. Personality Traits
A person working in this sector should be extremely passionate about what this job entails. To do a physically demanding job, day in and day out where you have to guide a team and make decisions as well as maintain your mental calm is no mean feat. The people engaged in such a profession are characterized by extremely different personality traits when compared to someone working in a normal organization. Some of the relevant personality traits that a person employed in this sector should possess are outlined below[2]: * Propensity to take risks * Ability to work under stress in physically demanding situations * Excellent coaching skills * Team Worker * Leadership Skills * Highly disciplined and motivated * Self driven and committed
To conquer themselves and stretch them beyond limits: this is what drives the people employed in this sector. The satisfaction of their esteem need of achievement is one of the most important motivating factors for such people.
The report has been divided into two parts where we explain the findings from the two phases of our study. 3. Phase I Study
As a part of the study, we conducted detailed interviews with a set of four diverse people working with different organizations across age groups. The detailed responses are shown in the Appendix section. Based on these interviews, a few common themes that appeared across the interviewee’s responses were identified and made the bases for our hypotheses. 4.1. Common Themes and Related concepts
The interviews gave us a deeper insight into the mindsets of the people who have chosen adventure sports as a career. One of the most important motivating factors that prompts a person to take up this profession is his/her passion towards adventure. They enjoy spending most of their time outdoors and through this profession, have converted what would have otherwise been a hobby into a full time pursuit. The thrill of converting their passion into an enjoyable venture and the joy when others experience the same thrill on successfully completing a sport is probably something that will not be found in other organizations. The responsibility of taking a huge group of people and bringing them back safely is a task that makes employees realize the importance of their job. The independence and the level of empowerment and decision making that people get to exercise in this profession is another huge factor that demands that employees put their best foot forward in this job.
Another major theme that emerged from our interviews was that people perform well depending on the amount of recognition and respect that they earn. When an extremely difficult trek is carried out successfully, the employees get recognition from the client group as well as their peers which in turn, prompt them to deliver even better the next time. The possibility of being closer to nature, away from the hectic humdrum of normal life in a relaxing environment is one of the main reasons why people prefer such jobs in comparison to the normal jobs. The immense possibilities that are thrown open to them in lieu of meeting new people and going to new places contributes to making their jobs different and not boring. The learning that they get through each of these trips and from the diverse set of people that they encounter contributes in making each of their experiences vastly different. These are some of the factors that make them perform consistently in their jobs.
From the perspective of an outsider, a job in this sector seems thrilling and enough to satisfy any person interested in it. But like any other job, the people involved in adventure sports also come face to face with certain disadvantages as well. The fact that you have to be away from your family and sometimes, cannot even be in contact with them when on a trip to a remote area is a hugely demotivating factor for most of our interviewees. Another important factor that they spoke of is the time crunch that they might face which hinders them from spending time with their family or friends. These are some of the themes that might not seem important in a single glance but are factors that might even detract a person interested in this profession from taking it up.
People in adventure sports industry fall here

Figure 1. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
From our conversation with people working in the adventure sports industry, we can hypothesize that people join this industry to realize their self-actualization and esteem needs as defined in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory. The motivating factors like passion to take part in adventure sports, exploring nature are clearly self-actualization needs. But other motivational factors like recognition by clients and colleagues, the need to feel empowered and independent are esteem needs[4].
The nature of the work in this industry involves not just an active participation in adventure sports, but also requires one to take swift decisions. Thus, according to Douglas McGregor, people in this industry will naturally fall under Theory Y.
According to Herzberg’s two-factor theory, the hygiene factors in this industry are the safety measures at work and connectivity with family while working in remote locations. And the motivating factors are recognition for work, responsibility and the power to take independent decisions and opportunities to explore and innovate.
3.2. Predictors and Dependent Variables
Based on the common themes that emerged from the interviews, we identified three prominent predictors that influence the performance of an employee engaged in the adventure sports profession as below.

PREDICTORS DEPENDENT VARIABLE

Figure 2. Predictors and Dependent Variables
3.3. Hypotheses
On the basis of the interviews conducted, we have derived the following three hypotheses: a) The passion for exploration drives people to perform well in adventure sports organizations. b) The independence provided by this job motivates employees to perform better. c) Recognition is positively correlated to the performance in this job.

4. Phase 2 Study 5.2. Job Performance
The value of the set of employee behaviors that contribute, either positively or negatively, to organizational goal accomplishment is defined as job performance. The following are the main dimensions across which the behavior of an employee can be measured and determined:
Task Performance includes employee behaviors that are directly involved in the transformation of organizational resources into the goods or services that the organization produces. There are two categories for this facet: * Routine task performance - involves well-known responses to demands that occur in a normal, routine, or otherwise predictable way. E.g. - Starting a car. * Adaptive task performance - involves employee responses to task demands that are novel, unusual, or, unpredictable. E.g. - Avoiding a stalled vehicle
Citizenship Behavior refers to those voluntary employee activities that may or may not be rewarded but that contribute to the organization by improving the overall quality of the setting in which work takes place. Again, this is divided into two categories: * Interpersonal * Helping involves assisting coworkers who have heavy workloads, etc. * Courtesy refers to keeping coworkers informed about matters relevant to them. * Sportsmanship involves maintaining a good attitude with coworkers, even when they’ve done something annoying. * Organizational * Voice involves speaking up and offering constructive suggestions for change. * Civic virtue requires participating in the company’s operations at a deeper-than-normal level. * Boosterism means representing the organization in a positive way when out in public, away from the office, and away from work.

Figure 3. Facets of citizenship behaviour
Counterproductive behaviors are employee behaviors that intentionally hinder organizational goal accomplishment. Various categories of this facet are as follows - * Property deviance refers to behaviors that harm the organization’s assets and possessions. * Production deviance is also directed against the organization but focuses specifically on reducing the efficiency of work output. * Political deviance refers to behaviors that intentionally disadvantage other individuals rather than the larger organization. * Personal aggression refers to hostile verbal and physical actions directed toward other employees.

Figure 4. Facets of counterproductive behaviour
4.2.Methodology
We approached the respondents with a questionnaire which measured their inclination towards the profession on various aspects. A total of 30 respondents participated in the survey. Through this survey we intended to test our hypothesis, which was to measure the impact of 1. Their passion for exploration 2. Independence and Empowerment 3. Level of Recognition by Clients & Peer group on the performance of the individual. The results of the individual surveys were aggregated and then statistical analysis was conducted on the aggregated data to verify the validity of our hypothesis.
Survey Methodology in Detail
In order to get a 360 degree view of the impact of our dependent variables on the output variable, we choose the respondents in such a way that the entire gender, age and diversity spectrum was taken into account. The surveys were mainly on a one on one basis or telephonic. A considerable proportion of the respondents choose to fill the survey online. The distribution of the respondents to the survey is as follows method From the pie and the Bar graphs above it can be said that a healthy proportion of female population have chosen adventure sports as their career option and our survey also successfully captures the responses of a total of 8 female participants. The respondents also varied in their age, the oldest respondent was 59 years old and the youngest respondent was of 24 years.
We framed interview questions considering that interview goes on in a flow and interviewee is comfortable answering the questions. We avoided the direct questions and tried to have a combination of both probing questions and open questions. This helped us to gain the maximum information regarding job aspects from the respondents. We also entertained the responses not of much useful for our project with patience so as to make the respondents comfortable. Most of the interviews questions were of continuity type so as to engage the respondents. However, we occasionally switched to closed type questions whenever we felt too much digression from the topics.
Details of the Respondents Many of the respondents were based out of Bangalore and hence telephonic responses were recorded. Organizations selected ranged from student run adventure clubs to professionally run organizations. To name a few, the organizations we covered as a part of the survey included Organization | Number of Respondents | Anveshan, IIM Bangalore | 6 | Bangalore Mountaineering Club | 3 | Breakthrough | 2 | Elan Adventures | 2 | Himalayan Mountaineering Club | 1 | Hyderabad Adventure Club | 2 | IIT Kanpur Adventure Club | 3 | Indian Air Force Rafting Team | 2 | Institut für Technische Verbrennung | 1 | Lal Bahadur Mountaineering Club | 4 | Majestic Tour India | 1 | Sikkim tours & travels | 1 | Tenzing Nature and Adventure Club | 1 | Waltair Escapade Thrills Adventure Sports | 1 |

Evaluation of Survey Results
The three dependent variables about job performance were assessed across the three facets – task performance, citizenship behavior and counterproductive performance. These three facets form our predictor variable set. In order to validate our hypotheses, we constructed 4-item questionnaires for each of these six variables. An online survey was taken from 30 different individuals working in the adventure sports industry with diversified backgrounds. The survey takers were asked to rate the items on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 corresponding to strongly disagree and 5 corresponding to strongly agree.
Reliability of the survey results
Reliability is a statistical measure which indicates the extent to which a survey questionnaire produces the same result on repeated trials. It checks for the consistency of scores across time and individuals.
The reliability for a scale is calculated using the formula: k*r1+k-1*r Where, k = Number of items in a scale r = Average correlation among the k items
The reliabilities of the different scales from the survey results are as follows: | Scale | Reliability Score | Performance Dimensions | Task Performance | 0.36 | | Citizenship Behavior | 0.72 | | Counterproductive Performance | 0.70 | Dependent Variables | Passion for exploration | 0.61 | | Independence | 0.48 | | Recognition | 0.2 |

This means that the internal consistency of the survey items that propose to measure the performance dimensions of citizenship and counterproductive behaviors and the dependent variables of passion for exploration and independence produce similar scores. The low reliability scores for the other items are mainly due to using only a 4-item scale. With higher values of k, we can expect higher reliability scores.

Correlation between predictor and dependent variables
The correlation was computed in several stages. First, average scores for all the six variables were computed for each person. Then we computed the overall means for each variable by averaging mean scores of all 30 people for that variable. Then the correlation between a dependent variable X and an independent variable Y is calculated using the formula: r=1nX-X(Y-Y)1n The correlations between different dependent and independent variables are shown below: | Task Performance | Citizenship Behaviour | Counterproductive Performance | Passion for exploration | 0.49 | 0.46 | 0.48 | Independence | 0.56 | 0.15 | 0.34 | Recognition | 0.41 | 0.22 | 0.25 |

The statistical significance is explained in the following section.
Confidence levels and statistical significance
Critical value corresponding to df 28 and significance level 0.05= 0.361
The correlation coefficients were tested against the critical values of the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient. The values for the two-tailed test were used. The critical values were taken for a significance level of 0.05 and degree of freedom equal to 28 (30 samples and 2 parameters: Mean and standard deviation).

The correlation values obtained are compared with this critical value for the corresponding degrees of freedom (28) and significance level (0.05) to check for statistical significance. For any of the correlations to be statistically significant, the correlation value should be higher than the critical value of 0.361.
It is observed that the correlations between the first variable and the three predictors are statistically significant; the first hypothesis is fully supported by all the three dimensions of performance: task behavior, citizenship behavior and counterproductive behavior. This means that Passion for exploration as a motivator behind performance can be explained in terms of the attitudes of people towards their job as well as the sense of ownership they have towards the organization of which they are a part. The field being adventure sports, there could probably have been various occasions where the people might have indulged in counterproductive behavior when their motivation levels were low or when they were faced with obstacles in the activity that they had undertaken. This is why there exists a positive significant correlation between passion for exploration and the predictor variable of counterproductive behavior.
The second variable, Independence exhibits significant correlation with the task behavior. Its correlation with counterproductive behavior dimension is higher than the correlation with citizenship behavior but neither is statistically significant. Thus, the hypothesis of independence being a factor behind the increased job performance level is partially supported. Independence has enabled the respondents to perform their tasks much better than either of the other two variables as shown by its high correlation with task behavior(0.56). At the same time, it has also resulted in the respondent showing lower levels of citizenship behavior since being independent might make them exhibit lesser organizational/group tendencies. Since other opinions will not be solicited before indulging in any counterproductive actions, independence and counterproductive behavior are positively correlated. Recognition is partially supported by the statistical significance it exhibits with the task behavior. As the employees perform their tasks well and satisfy the expectations of their peers, superiors and clients, they get adequate recognition and appreciation for their efforts. Getting recognized would act as a check in case these employees indulge in counterproductive behavior which is why the correlation is not statistically significant. It might also act as a factor behind the employees who get recognized not having to exhibit higher levels of organizational ownership as they have already done the same through their work. Another interesting result of our study was that all the three variables exhibit significant positive correlations with the task behavior dimension while only the first variable, passion for exploration exhibit significant correlation with citizenship behavior and counterproductive behavior. This indicates that task behavior can act as an explanatory variable for all of the three hypotheses while citizenship and counterproductive dimensions need not necessarily explain why independence and recognition can be motivators behind job performance.
EXPLANATION FOR VARIATION
Adventure Sports profession is one of the areas where individual brilliance and the drive to excellence plays a far greater role for an individual to perform better. There may be times when a person may not be so motivated and inspired by the policies of the organization he/she works for, yet he can deliver exemplary service just out of his passion for the field. The same can be evidenced by the responses in our survey.
A person employed in this profession belongs to the ISTP personality type of the MBTI indicator.[4]ISTP’s are fiercely independent and prefer to take their own decisions. Being involved in a profession where they rely more on the intuitive model of decision making, they might take decisions that are in conflict with the larger interests of the group. This is why independence is not highly correlated with the citizenship behavior in an organization. These professionals are a part of work groups where not much of collective work is required unless they are handling huge groups of clients. This is another reason why not much of citizenship behavior is exhibited.
A profession like this is the ideal setting where we can see the people exhibiting the characteristics of the social identity theory. One significant observation made in this regard is that there people with high levels of passion for exploration might also indulge in counterproductive behavior. This is against the established norms of the group. This can be attributed to the individual traits of motivation which play a far greater role in this profession than the organizational settings and structure.
Recognition is tied with the dual perspectives of the employee’s role perception and the associated role expectation. An employee who satisfies his role expectations would be recognized for his efforts which justify the statistical significance between recognition and task behavior.
Another recurring theme that was evident through the survey was the relation between the job responsibilities and personality traits of an individual. The majority of our respondents is in this profession because of their personal motivation for exploration and love for nature. As their work responsibilities are well aligned to their personal motivation, this resulted in better task performance leading to recognition by clients.
IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGERS 1. The managers in adventure sports profession can screen the potential candidates interested in this profession by the MBTI personality test. Through this, they will be able to select the best possible candidate that fits the organizational requirement of belonging to an ISTP type. 2. The decision making approach can be refined to ensure that it combines intuition with rational analysis. By using this approach, the decision making effectiveness can be improved. 3. Efforts should be made to ensure that there is a high congruence between job expectation and job perception. This would lead to improved levels of job performance. 4. Rather than promoting individual accomplishments and the ensuing individual recognition, the managers should try to make better team players rather than group players. This would automatically, lead people to exhibit higher levels of organization ownership behavior. 5. Managers should try to promote building cohesiveness in the work group. The linkages between cohesiveness and higher productivity levels will in turn, weaken the counterproductive tendencies exhibited by individuals.
http://www.personalitypage.com/html/ISTP.html