Relationship Between Personality Traits, Work Environment and Interpersonal Relationship at Work
CHAPTER ONE
Objectives Of The Study
The general objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between work environment, big 5 personality traits, and interpersonal relations.
The specific objectives of this study are as follows:
- To determine the relationship between work environment and interpersonal relationship.
- To investigate the relationship between openness and interpersonal relationship.
- To examine the relationship between conscientiousness and interpersonal relationship.
- To observe the relationship between extraversion and interpersonal relationship.
- To investigate the relationship between agreeableness and interpersonal relationship.
- To investigate the relationship between neuroticism and interpersonal relationship.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
In recruiting employees, competence based on relevant academic qualifications and previous experiences are often given credence by recruiters. An emerging paradigm is the influence of personality traits on employee performance. Divergent views, underpinned by several hypotheses have been reported on the relationship between personality traits and job performance. This chapter reviews the key literature and theories on the different personality traits; job performance and reported interrelationships. At the end of the chapter, a summary on the current state of knowledge gaps are highlighted and the areas to which this study aims to contribute are also defined.
The Concept of Personality
Kinicki, (2008), refers to personality as a stable set of characteristics that are responsible for a person’s identity. The internal dimension or the primary dimensions of diversity are mostly outside our control but strongly influence our attitudes and our expectations and assumptions about others, thus influencing our behavior (Kinicki, 2008). Again, is a relatively enduring pattern of thinking, feeling and acting that characterize a person’s response to his or her environment (Bratton et al, 2007). Personality looks at the individuality, where people differ significantly in the ways they routinely think, feel and act. Personality rests on the observation that people seem to behave somewhat consistently overtime and across different life situations eg. One would not be characterize a person having a shy personality if that person tended to be dominantly shy and retire only some of the time and on other occasions was frequently observed to be very sociable and outgoing.
The study of personality involves examining factors within the people that causes them to behave consistently as they do. The determinants of personality are nature and nurture. Nature referring to the biological heritage and genetic makeup whilst Nurture is the life experiences one has gone through. Twins studies indicate that identical twins that grow up together in the same family have the same permissiveness or strict and similar life experiences. If the twins have similar personality, it is impossible to identify the source of similarity because they have not only the same genetic makeup but also similar experiences including strictness or permissiveness of a child’s parent, the number of other children in the family, demands from parents and teachers and culture (Kinicki 2008).
It is perceived that personality is stable over periods of time because half of the variations is inherited from parents and is also likely to change as one environment changes. Personality is an important difference that managers and organizational members need to take into account because realizing for example that an employee complains a lot because of his or personality will help managers and colleagues deal this type of employee’s job performance (Kinicki 2008).
Personality Traits Theories
Colquitt et al. (2009) defines personality traits as the structures and propensities inside a person that explains his or her characteristic patterns of thought, emotion and behavior. Personality captures what people are like, in contrast to ability which captures what people can do (Colquitt et al, 2009). They are recurring regularities or trends in a person
(Colquitt et al, 2009). There are a number of theories on personality traits. Some are: Hippocrates (460-370 BC) Four Temperaments, Allport (1897- 1967), Cattell’s 16PF test, Eysenck (1916-1997), Big Five Model
Hippocrate’s Four Temperaments
Almost two thousand years ago, the ancient Greek used humoral theory to explain individual differences in personality. The body was thought to contain four humours or fluids: black bile, blood, phlegm and yellow bile. The personality of individuals i.e. traits and behaviours were classified according to the disposition supposedly produced by the predominance of one of these four (4) bodily fluids. There are four (4) temperaments leading to the four (4) personality types. Source. en.m.wikipedia .org/ four temperaments)
They are: Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic and Phlegmatic.
A sanguine person has a predominance of blood (sanguis) and is linked with air because they are cheerful, playful, lively, and passionate. They can be flighty, make new friends easily, have a whole lot of ideas and imaginative. A sanguine at a work place always has vigour and zeal, serves as an inspiration and helper to others, creative and always thinking up new activities to be carried out. However, their weaknesses at work are, they waste time talking rather working and therefore easily forget their obligations. Their priorities are out of order making them unfocused and undisciplined. Their confidence fades fast due to the fact that they decide by feelings. Pedagogically, they can be best reached through awaking of their love for a subject and admiration of people. Melancholic people, has excess of black bile and they linked with earth element. They have a pessimistic temperament, always cautious and even suspicious. They can be serious, focused, and conscientious and like to do things on their own. They are introverts and can become preoccupied with the tragedy and cruelty in the world making them susceptible to depression. A melancholic at work place is uncompromising worker living to high standards set, alert and organised things in an orderly manner, likes to work on figures, charts and graphs and where there are problems he tries to find solutions to them and they very economical. However, their weaknesses are that, they do not associate with people easily and are hard to please. They prefer difficult task and are easily depressed over their imperfections. Pedagogically, they can be best met by awakening their sympathy for others.
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY AND ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILE
Introduction
Methodology typically refers to the techniques that are used to conduct research. This include data collection instruments such as questionnaires, interviews or observation as well as sampling procedures and statistical techniques for organizing and interpreting unstructured data (Bryman 2008). This chapter spells out the approach to the research. It seeks to establish sound reasoning in linking the steps employed to answer the research questions and to achieve the objectives of the research. It discusses the methods that have been considered for this research study.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
Introduction
This chapter presents analysis and the discussion of the data collected from the field survey. The objective of the study is to determine the effect of personality traits and its impact on the job performance of staff at AMAC housing department as the case study. This chapter thus depicts the findings which seek to answer the research questions against the background of the objectives of the study. Data gathered from the field survey was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software and Microsoft excel spreadsheet (2010). The SPSS was used for data transformation, running of cross tabulation, percentages, ratios and the regression analysis while the Microsoft excel was used for designing bar graphs, histograms and pie charts. The following outlines 145 responses received from the 150 questionnaires administered.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Introduction
The chapter gives a summary on the findings and analysis made on the data gathered, the necessary recommendations on personality and job performance at AMAC housing department using the performance appraisal measures at AMAC housing department.
Summary of findings
The study was conducted to analyze the effect of personality traits on employee performance in AMAC housing department. One hundred and fifty (150) respondents who work at Abuja Metropolitan council were engaged in the study; however, responses were received from one hundred and forty five (145) respondents. These workers were from the various departments in AMAC housing department. The study was used to measure the personality of individuals, based on the five-factor model of personality, which includes the dimensions of Extraversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Openness to experience and Conscientiousness. The five personality dimensions were each divided into a five point likert scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree using 145 employees based on Performance Appraisal measures at AMAC housing department by supervisors. The following findings were brought to fore after the study.
Identification of Individual personality traits
The study revealed the five personality traits, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, openness to experience and neuroticism were seen to be exhibited by the different individuals among the respondents at Abuja Metropolitan council and this confirms the study by (McCrae &Costa, 1997) that among every group of employees there is the probability that they will all have at least one of the five traits since the five personality traits have a genetic basis that they are probably inherited.
Conclusion
The public sector has a lot of people that are working there as such their personality traits should be checked. The current study showed that in every organization there will be different character traits that might influence job performance in the organization.
A personality type play an important role in an employee job performance, as measured by standard measures of employees’ performance and has got great implications for organizational success. Personality traits are expressed in skills, which are in turn reflected in strategies and eventually produce a better organizational outcome (De Raad & Schouwenburg, 1996). Therefore, an understanding of the employees’ personality traits becomes an important pedagogical tool. Understanding the employees’ personality traits in which employees gather and process information (manners and ways) can lead to more effective pedagogies that will benefit both employees and the organization.
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