Recommended hophead characteristics and applications

Topic: How different personalities work together to achieve organizational goals. Article: Bakker, A.B. (2015). Towards a multilevel approach of employee well-being. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology 24(6): 839-843.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2015.1071423

Annotation: Employee wellbeing is strongly associated with collaboration in the workplace and the collective commitment to reaching organizational goals, according to prior literature. Bakker (2015) builds on prior literature in the areas of personality diversity and organizational objectives. This article first outlines various theories of organizational psychology including job demands-resources theory, which shows how top-level management decisions can mitigate the detrimental effects of personality diversity on organizational commitment. At the same time, employee commitment can positively enhance team cohesion and the ability for teams to achieve their own and the organization’s main goals. Job crafting, the bottom-up, employee-driven behaviors, are linked with reduced stress, reduced rates of burnout, and greater work engagement, according to the author. The implications of recent research on team diversity and achievement of organizational goals are to help managers cultivate the ideal workplace environment.

Article: Barak, M.E.M., Findler, L. & Wind, L.H. (2001). Diversity, inclusion, and committment in organizations. Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management 2(2): 70-91.

Link: https://jbam.scholasticahq.com/article/813-diversity-inclusion-and-commitment-in-organizations-international-empirical-explorations

Annotation: This article shows how perceptions of inclusion impacts both decision-making and organizational commitment. Often, diversity discourse focuses exclusively on culture, gender, and other ancillary characteristics rather than on personality traits or types. Barak, Findler & Wind (2001) expand the definition of diversity in the workplace. Personality diversity is linked to perceptions of fairness, social support networks and access to power, stress and stress management, and organizational commitment. Many personality trait differences transcend both culture and gender, with implications for achievement of organizational goals. The researchers conduct several empirical studies using convenience samples and questionnaires to yield quantitative data. Ultimately, the research shows that inclusion is strongly linked to organizational commitment, as are the other variables like stress. The implications are that different personalities can work together to achieve organizational goals when there are active mechanisms and methods in place for inclusivity, cooperation, and stress management.

Article: Bottomley, P., Mostafa, A.M.S., Gould-Williams, J., et al (2015). The impact of transformational leadership on organizational citizenship behaviours. British Journal of Management 27(2): 390-405.

Link: DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12108

Annotation: This research shows how transformational leadership is a central factor in helping teams overcome the problems of personality diversity. In addition to encouraging collaboration in the team and workplace culture overall, transformational leadership also engenders commitment and intrinsic motivation. The authors hypothesize that public service motivation in particular can reduce the effectiveness of transformational leadership methods, based on a survey of over one thousand public service professionals in Mexico. Unlike other studies, this research focuses on the public sector. The public sector workplace environment is qualitatively different from private sector organizations, making this research extremely helpful in illuminating some of the contextual constraints on management. However, the results can also be extrapolated for application in the private sector. Intrinsic goals and motivation are important factors in helping people with diverse personalities work together to achieve organizational goals.

Article: Choi, D., Oh, I.-S., & Colbert, A. E. (2015). Understanding organizational commitment: A meta-analytic examination of the roles of the five-factor model of personality and culture. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(5), 1542-1567.

Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/apl0000014

Annotation: This article examines the link between five factor model personality traits and organizational commitment.
Organizational commitment is measured along three different parameters including affective commitment, normative commitment, and continuance commitment. The authors also measure variability of organizational commitment between individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Using the method of meta-analysis to cover 55 samples from 50 different studies, with a total of 18,262 participants, the researchers found that all of the five factor personality traits had corresponding levels of positive affective organizational commitment and normative commitment. These findings are unique, and show that affective and normative commitment may be trait-independent. However, the authors also found that agreeableness is most strongly correlated with affective and normative commitment, especially in collectivistic cultures. On the other hand, the authors found that the traits of emotional stability, extraversion, and openness to experience had negative relationships with continuance commitment. I will use this article in my research to bolster my claims related to personality diversity and reaching organizational goals.

Article: Colbert, A.E., Barrick, M.R. & Bradley, B.H. (2013). Personality and leadership composition in top management teams. Personnel Psychology 67(2): 351-387.

Link: DOI: 10.1111/peps.12036

Annotation: Whereas the majority of studies focus on employee traits and how those impact organizational goals, this research by Colbert, Barrick & Bradley (2013) shows how senior management personality diversity impacts the ability for the organization to reach its goals. Based on upper echelons theory, this research measures both personality traits and leadership styles. Interestingly, the trait of conscientiousness is negatively correlated with organizational performance and also with transformational leadership. However, transformational leadership was associated with higher levels of organizational commitment among the employees/followers. The results also show that personality diversity at the upper echelons of the organization mitigate CEO-specific leadership traits. It is important to incorporate research on senior management as well as employees to show how personality traits at various levels of the organization will affect performance objectives.

Article: Fischer, R. & Boer, D. (2014). Motivational basis of personality traits. Journal of Personality 83(5): 491-510.

Link: DOI: 10.1111/jopy.12125

Annotation: This article is unique in that it uses empirical methods to measure the correlations between personality traits and individual values. The authors use a meta-analysis method taking into account studies in the 10 Values model and the Big Five personality model. All together, the studies comprised 9,935 participants, making this meta-analysis meaningful and groundbreaking in this area of research. The results did present several meaningful relationships between personality and values, even when situational variables like perceptions of threat were controlled for. Threats weakened the value-personality relationships. Most importantly, personality traits like openness were linked with value dimensions like conservation; agreeable personality traits were linked with the value of transcendence. The implications for my research are to show how different personality types are linked with different value orientations. This has implications for how managers construct and lead their teams to achieve organizational goals. When goals are reframed as values, then it becomes easier to align diverse personalities with organizational mission, vision, and values.

Article: Klotz, A.C. & Neubaum, D.O. (2015). Research on the dark side of personality traits in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship in Theory and Practice 40(1): 7-17.

Link: DOI: 10.1111/etap.12214

Annotation: This article is about the “dark side” traits of various personality types. The “dark side” traits are really just the “negative extremes” of positive personality traits, but have been shown in the literature to be strongly correlated with organizational or personal entrepreneurial success (Klotz & Neubaum, 2015, p. 7). For example, the positive trait of confidence can be overshadowed at times by the negative extreme of overconfidence or narcissism. Passion can manifest negatively as aggressiveness; creative thinking as deviance; persistence as obsessiveness. It is important to recognize these dark side traits when understanding how different personalities can work together to achieve organizational goals. Instead of focusing only on positive traits when designing teams, managers and leaders should also take into account the negative traits and endeavor to mitigate the potential personality clashes that can occur. Although not an experimental research, this article does offer a comprehensive review of literature on the subject and can tremendously help my research in how companies can thrive.

Article: Kluemper, D.H., McLarty, B.D. & Bing, M.N. (2015). Acquaintance ratings of the Big Five personality traits: Incremental validity beyond and interactive effects with self-reports in the prediction of workplace deviance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(1), 237-248.

Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0037810

Annotation: Workplace deviance is an important factor in organizational performance and the achievement of organizational goals. Big Five personality traits are in turn linked to expressions of organizational deviance. However, Big Five personality measurement instruments are based on self-reports. In this article, Kleumper, McLarty & Bing (2015) first reflect on prior literature showing how conscientious, agreeableness, and emotional stability are all correlated with workplace deviance but only in studies involving self-report methods of personality assessment. Kleumper, McLarty & Bing (2015) conduct original research using both self-reports and also peer- or acquaintance assessment. Survey instruments of supervisors were used to measure workplace deviance. The research showed that conscientiousness and agreeableness remained strong predictors of workplace deviance, and that acquaintance ratings were even more effective in predicting deviance. Implications for my research and for organizational leaders and human resources managers are abundantly clear.

Article: Liang, H., Shih, H. & Chiang, Y. (2015). Team diversity and team helping behavior. European Management Journal 33(1): 48-59.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2014.07.002

Annotation: One of the primary factors in organizational success and meeting organizational goals is team cohesion. This article focuses on several elements of team cohesion including helping behaviors, which are in turn connected with personality traits of individual team members. When teams are comprised of individuals with diverse backgrounds and traits, it can be challenging to ensure helping behaviors. The authors of this article hypothesized that the more diverse the team is on the level of personality traits, the less likely the team would be to exhibit helping behaviors. Methods include using surveys of over 500 employees in over 100 different work teams in Taiwan. The authors found partial support for the hypothesis, which indicates that some personality diversity may actually be conducive to helping behavior, contrary to expectations. Managers can use this information to manage teams comprised of individuals with completely different deeper level personality traits including traits linked to motivation and behavior.

Article: Supeli, A. & Creed, P.A. (2015). The longitudinal relationship between protean career orientation and job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intention to quit. Journal of Career Development 43(1): 66-80.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1177/0894845315581686

Annotation: Globalization, technology, and other sweeping trends have transformed the relationship between employees and their organizations. In this article, Supeli & Creed (2015) surveyed 168 young employees (mean age of 24 years) working for an Indonesian firm. In spite of the methodological weaknesses of the study, the results do show that protean career orientation, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment are all linked. Protean career orientation refers to self-motivation or intrinsic motivation to achieve personal career goals; the individual perceives of their career trajectory in flexible, organization-independent ways that could lead to decreased commitment. In fact, the authors did find that protean career orientation is linked to reduced commitment and increased intention to quit. Yet reduced organizational commitment may not necessarily be linked to reduced productivity or to the inability of the organization or the team to reach its goals. In fact, short-term objectives are more likely to be met when employees are internally motivated and have high job satisfaction: both of which are connected with protean career orientation. The implications for my research are to show that human resources managers can work with individuals whose personalities lend themselves towards a protean orientation.