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Research Paper
Impact of Personality traits on Employee's Performance

Group Members
Javeria Raza 01122132-022
Zil-e-Muhammad 01-122132-046
Hira Saeed 01-122132-019
Saad Zafar 01-122132-037
Sana Fatima 01-122132-040

Project Supervisor

Dr. M. Hafiz Mushtaq

 Acknowledgment
Without great support of Sir Hafiz Mushtaq it would not be possible to write this research paper.
He has always been very responsive in providing necessary information, and without his generous
support research paper would lack in accurate information on current developments.

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Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 3
Literature review ........................................................................................................................................... 4
Theoretical Framework ................................................................................................................................. 6
Independent Variable: .................................................................................................................................. 7
Dependent Variable: ................................................................................................................................. 7
Moderating variable: ................................................................................................................................. 7
Research Design: .......................................................................................................................................... 7
Population and Sample ............................................................................................................................. 7
Primary data collection method: ............................................................................................................... 7
Questionnaire Design: ............................................................................................................................... 8
Variables and Measures: ........................................................................................................................... 8
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION ............................................................................................ 8
References .................................................................................................................................................... 9

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Introduction
Relationship between personality traits and job performance has been studied by many researchers such
as industrial psychologies in the past decades .The success and failure of an organization is so much
dependent on the performance of its employees and employee's performance directly or indirectly
influenced by situational factors such as environmental characteristics, organization and coworkers, and
internal factors. The inner factors refer to variables such as personality traits, needs, attitudes, preferences,
motivations, and beliefs that motivate peoples react to situational factors. Moreover employee's
performance could influence by other factors such as need to achievement, span of control, self-
confidence, capacity, and interactions between these mentioned factors.

Based on the future research of Jeon and Choi (2012) indicating the need of personality trait in work
performance. The overall focus of discussion is on how personality traits impact the employee work
performance. Further, the personality trait theories are discussed and suitable theory for this study is
selected and illuminated in details. Personality traits refer to enduring personal characteristics that are
revealed in a particular pattern of behavior in a variety of situation. Whereas job performance is the work
related activities expected of an employee and how well those activities were executed.

The relationship between performance and personality traits has been studied by many researchers.
Evidences from these studies showed that some of the personality traits are rewarded while some are
penalized. Heineck (2007) observed that from UK perspective the relationship between agreeableness and
performance is negative whereas “openness to experience” has a good acceptance and is rewarded
positively. Flossmann et al. (2007) reported that personality is crucial even at the times when different
traits like experience and education are controlled. They were of the opinion that the success is influenced
from the beginning since the personality formulation started from the early child hood under the parents
and educational influence. Osborne Groves (2005) observed that the intellectual abilities of US females
are positively related with their performance but same was not true for the females in the UK with the
inclusion of personality traits. Semykina and Linz (2007) observed that there is a positive relationship
between an internal locus of control (LOC) and the earning through performance.

It should be remembered that these researches were conducted in different countries that have different
cultures and values, and conducting this in other countries such as Pakistan that have different culture and
values from other countries can generate different results. The objective it to get the clear understanding
about the different aspects of personality traits that affect the employee performance in one way or
another. If the real relations between personality traits and job performance discovered, its findings could
be used in selecting, recruitment, educating personals and introducing appropriate job and successful
career for them, other than that organizational commitment and job involvement is also been in depth
study in our literature. These variables have direct link with the job performance with the suitable,
encouraging, organizational culture. These traits give a positive escalation in the employee’s performance
within the organization.

Further, organizational culture is discussed, as it is envisaged a moderating variable in the present

conceptual model. Finally, employee work performance in general and employee work performance with
Pakistani organizations perspective has been highlighted in detail along with the proposed model, based
on the theoretical foundations, as emerged from the literature.

The scope of the research is that through this research we can find what traits are essential for
performing a job effectively. We will find out about which personality traits effects employee
performance and behavior directly. Because if you are looking to see whether you are going to do well at
the job, you need to see if you have the personality that fits the job. The primary objective of this research
is to investigative the relationship between these variables and hence fill the existing gap that has been
identified during the literature review. Therefore, the main aim of this research is to concentrate and to
examine critically the impact of work related attitudes, big five personality traits and its impact on

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performance.

Literature review
Personality has been considered as an important factor in the personality related studies specifically for
predicting the job performance. It is a behavior which differentiates one person from another (Beer &
Brooks, 2011) Job performance is a multi-factor construct. In such a construct, some factors can indicate
how well individuals perform at their work tasks and how well they manage to master problem solving in
specific work related situations. Other factors can indicate how well individuals use their resources, to
what extent they utilize time and energy at the task at hand, and how well they take actions towards
completing their work tasks1. Job performance is based on an eight factor model which covers all sub
dimensions of job performance in all types of occupations2. Finally, McCloy, Campbell, and Cudeck
(1994) and Viswesvaran and Ones (2000) indicated that job performance refers to how resourcefully
individuals take actions and contribute with behaviors that are in line with an organization’s objectives.

With regard to personality traits, the most widely accepted structure of personality, among scientists and researchers, is the
FFM of personality3.The structure of the FFM is based on five broad main factors, also known as the “Big Five” personality
dimensions with each factor being built up by groups of some narrow inter correlated traits, which are commonly referred to
as facets (or sub dimensions). The five main dimensions of personality, included in the FFM, are evidently,
referred to as Neuroticism, Extroversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and
Conscientiousness4.

Tett (1991) showed that there is a relationship between personality and job performance, as a significant
and fairly acceptable correlation coefficient was reported. Furthermore, more recent research support
previous findings as Dudley, Orvis, Lebiecki and Cortina (2006) have confirmed that personality traits are
capable of predicting behavioral outcomes at work. Prevailing studies provide correlations between
different type of personality variable and job Performance, categorizing the various personality variables
into one of the Big Five dimensions to estimate the strength of these variables' correlation with job
performance. Although their results were not altogether consistent the general consensus drawn by
researchers was that personality does in fact hold some utility as a predictor of job Performance.
Subsequent meta-analyses have seemed to solidify this newfound status granted to personality,
particularly to Conscientiousness. Behling (1998), for example, recently claimed Conscientiousness as
one of the most valid predictors of performance for most jobs, second only to general intelligence. It was
found that Extroversion, Conscientiousness, and Neuroticism correlated moderately with job
performance5.In line with past research, this suggests that individuals, who display high levels of
Extroversion and Conscientiousness, as well as low levels of Neuroticism, perform better in sales related
occupation which leads to high performance within the workplace. Unlike hypothesized, no correlation
was found between job performance and Agreeableness and Openness to Experience.

Research suggests that extroverted individuals are likely to excel in occupations that require individuals to
socialize and be highly interactive with others. Extroversion predicts not only overall job performance,
but specifically sales performance as well. These findings have been replicated. (Barrick & Mount, 1991).
In evidence, researchers have reported that individuals with high levels of Extroversion tend to perform
well at supervisory-, police-, and sales related positions (Salgado, 1997). It should be noted, that Barrick
(2001) found no significant relationship between Extroversion and overall job performance, however they

1
Boshoff & Arnolds, 1995.
2
Campbell, McHenry, and Wise (1990)
3
Goldberg, 1990.
4
McCrae & Costa, 1997.
5
Andreas Klang, 2012.

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extended Salgado’s findings by reporting that Extroversion predicts managerial performance as well as
teamwork. Surprisingly, no significance was found for job. It has also been observed that the scales of
personality are related to job performance (Sackett et al., 1998). For example, sales executives having
high extraversion generally show good performance at job, as the sales job requires a great deal of social
contacts, and an introverted sales executive is observed to be non-suitable as compare to an extravert.

Similarly, the employee in the accounts section with high neurotic attitude would have a high value for
the company. Researchers like Sinha (2005) have found that personality and productivity are highly
correlated for the jobs where interpersonal interactions are high.

H1a: Extroversion will have a positive impact on employee work performance

Openness predicted success in specific occupations and specific work tasks. In a field setting of
managerial success, Judge, Thoresen, Pucik, and Welbourne (1999) said that openness was positively
related to managers’ ability to cope with various organizational changes, such as mergers, acquisitions,
downsizing, and the like.

H1b: Openness to experience will have a positive impact on employee work performance

Conscientious persons are dependable, reliable, and achievement oriented, whereas low scorers are
careless, lackadaisical, and undependable (Digman, 1990). Meta analytic research has consistently
supported conscientiousness as one of the few personality based predictors with generalizable validity
across occupations and job situations and such research has confirmed the positive association between
conscientiousness and sales performance as well (Vinchur, Schippmann, Switzer, & Roth 1998).

H1c: Conscientiousness will have a positive impact on employee work performance

Agreeableness refers to individuals who tend to be trusting, helpful towards others, forgiving, soft
hearted, and compassionate. Agreeableness has close relationship with job performance. The agreeable
workers have plurality entity that is suitable to public-related and customer services jobs Salgado (1997).

H1d: Agreeableness will have a positive impact on employee work performance

Neuroticism, as opposed to Emotional stability, refers to individuals who tend to be shy, angry,
insecure, depressed, vulnerable and anxious. In contrast, individuals who are emotionally stable
tend to be secure and calm, and therefore more likely to control their impulses and cope with
stress. The six sub dimensions of Neuroticism include Anxiety, Angry Hostility, Depression,
Self-consciousness, Impulsiveness, and Vulnerability6.
Past research indicates that Emotional stability predicts job performance Besides Conscientiousness,
Emotional stability is considered to be a reliable and valid predictor of job performance across
occupations and work tasks 7 .However, findings in the same study revealed that Emotional stability
correlated strongest with teamwork. Furthermore, investigating the European community, Salgado (1997)
found support that, besides Conscientiousness, Emotional stability is a valid predictor of all types of job
performance, measured across occupations. Even if this personality trait today is considered a valid
predictor for job performance it is worth mentioning that Barrick and Mount (1991) reported a quite
questionable correlation coefficient. As the present study focuses on identifying predictors of supervisory
ratings of job performance, in a sales context, it is important to test the potential contribution of
Neuroticism.

6
Costa & McCrae, 1992
7
Barrick, 2001

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H1e: Neuroticism will have a negative impact on employee work performance

Along with job involvement and organizational commitment another work-related attitude that comes
under discussion in the literature is the intention to change the organization. Therefore, in this research we
also consider job involvement and organizational commitment, as variables of this work related attitudes.
The attitude of job involvement was initially presented by Lodahl and Kejner (1965). Several studies to
explore the personal and situational factors have been conducted in different work environments. Job
involvement has been identified by researchers to be the role player in terms of motivating employee in
an organizational perspective (Lawler, 1986). It has also been observed that the job involvement is the
factor that provides competitive advantage to the organizations (Lawler, 1992; Pfeffer, 1994). Brown
(1996) observed that the higher involvement of the employee in the job increases the effectiveness and
productivity of the organization. From the conceptual framework of this study, job involvement and
organizational commitment are captured as work-related attitudes to employee’s job performance along
with the five factor (Big Five) model of personality traits. Therefore, these variables (job involvement and
organizational commitment) are envisaged as independent variables.

H2a: Job involvement will have a positive impact on employee work performance

H2b: Organizational commitment will have a positive impact on employee work performance

Organizational commitment is considered to be an individual’s affirmative alignment toward the

organization; therefore, the definition of the organizational commitment could be a situation where an
employee’s identification is with the organization and he/she desires to continue his association with the
organization to fulfill the organizational goals. Attitudinal commitment (also identified as effective
organizational commitment) develops the employees’ loyalty with the organization (Porter et al., 1974).
Etzioni (1961) assumed that the commitment towards the organization depends upon the nature of
employee’s association with the organization. According to Peters and Waterman (1982) and Deal and
Kennedy (1982) organizational culture and commitment are strongly correlated. The reason behind this
rationale was the fact that the organization’s culture comprises of a group of values shared throughout
the organization, these groups of values would be about the nature and worth of employee-organization
commitment and association. Moreover the organizational culture influences employee approaches and
assertiveness with reference to engaging firm and commitment. Organizational culture will moderate the
relationship between work related attitudes and employee work performance.

H3: Organizational culture will moderate the relationship between work related attitudes and employee
work performance

Theoretical Framework

Neuroticism

Extroversion

Openness to experience Employee work

Agreeableness performance

Conscientiousness

Commitment Organizati
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 Job involvement Employee work
Organizational performance

Organization
culture

Independent Variable:
 Neuroticism
 Extroversion
 Openness to experience
 Agreeableness
 Conscientiousness
 Job involvement
 Organizational commitment

Dependent Variable:
 Employee’s Performance

Moderating variable:
 Organizational culture

Research Design:
This study is a Hypothesis Testing study in which we explain the nature of relationship between
dependent and independent variables. The study is based to prove the impact of Personality trait on
employee’s Performance.

Population and Sample:

The research setting will be the capital city of Pakistan i.e. Islamabad. Target population for the study will
be the service sector like Telecommunication (Ufone, Telenor, Zong) and different banks operating in
Islamabad. Systematic sampling technique is used to gather data from 150 units which include individual
persons in organizations such as managers and the other employees working in it.

Primary data collection method:

The tool we will use to collect the primary data for the study is Questionnaires having the closed-ended

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questions. The focus of the questions will be on the impact of personality traits on employee's job
performance.

Questionnaire Design:
The scope of the study i.e. the impact of personality traits on employee's job performance will be covered
in the questionnaire. Personal Data of employees like age, gender, work experience and level of education
will be covered in the section 1 of questionnaire whereas section 2 will focus on the scope of the study
which will deal with the employee's performance and the impact of their personality trait on the
performance.

Variables and Measures:

Personality Trait:

Different Personality traits of employees were measured by a scale developed by Cattell (2011) ranging
from "Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree”.

Employee's Job Performance:

Five point likert scale developed by Luthans (2012) is designed to measure the performance of employee
with various personality traits. Same range from "Strongly disagree to strongly agree" will be used to
measure this.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

The present conceptual study attempts to contribute new knowledge to the existing literature of
personality and employee performance by conducting an in-depth literature review on the subject matter.
It was hypothesized that there exist positive direct significant relationships between personality and
employee performance and also between work-related attitudes and employees performance, with the
moderating effect of organizational culture, except for the neuroticism. In the future, it is strongly
encouraged that an empirical research is carried out to ascertain the authenticity of these relationships.
When done successfully, it will not only enrich the existing literature of the discipline theoretically, but it
will also practically enlighten researchers, practitioners, human resource managers and government
officers towards using the findings of the study to justify their efforts in designing appropriate learning
and performance improvement interventions so that job can be structured in relation to personality traits
of employees which can lead to improving employee performance, which in turn can lead to
organizational productivity and development.

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