The Role Of Personality Traits In Functioning At Work

Summary

The purpose of this study is to see the connections between personality traits, emotional labour, work engagement and job satisfaction in service professions. The study revealed that not all personality traits were linked to the various aspects of functioning at work. The implicit issue is that with beter knowledge on which traits correlate to certain work aspects, we can take steps towards preventing issues like stress and burnout.

Theoretical Perspectives

One theoretical perspective is that emotional labour is correlated to work engagement and job satisfaction. Hence by showing that they are influenced by the common personality traits, the relationship between the indicators can be proved. Professionals can learn from there on whether engaging more or less of emotional labour can lead to greater success in work functioning. Another theoretical perspective is that emotional labour allows professionals to be more successful at work. This is because emotional labour allows professionals to express their emotions according to their job scope, hence allows them to understand their job scope better. This not only benefits them but also benefits the organisation they’re working for too. Another theoretical perspective is that extraversion allows professionals to engage in emotional labour better. This is due to extravert’s nature of displaying positive emotions well, hence they can naturally engage in deep acting. They are less likely to feel stressed or burnout. Since all 3 aspects of work functioning are linked, extraversion is also a factor for higher work engagement and job satisfaction. (rephrase to all 3 aspects*)However a tension is that extraversion may not necessarily lead to greater work functioning of an organisation, as extraverts may only be able to regulate emotions individually and not in big groups.

Supporting Evidence

Firstly, Secondly, the study comprised of too many questions with some having lengthy options to select from. As participants move on the survey, they may get restless and just mindlessly select neutral options when they do not put much thought into the answers. This is also known as the central tendency effect. There may also be recency effect as participants just select options based on their recent experiences as they are tired and do not want to think much back on their past. Thirdly, the personality questionnaire can be improved. This ie because NEO FFI may not be the most precise measurement as it is less comprehensive than NEO PIR. Hence the data collected may not be as precise, leading to inconclusive results of the realationships. The study is good in taking into account of individual differences as it used participants from a diverse range of educational backgrounds. This takes into account of their differing backgrounds and experiences. In addition, it also specified earlier in the paper that results may differ among countries. Hence it allowed readers to realise that they should not generalise the information read in the study. The study is good as it used various examples from different perspectives in explaining its job indicators. This showed that it took into account of different researches before coming to a conclusion which increased reliability of the study’s wordings.

Assumptions

Firstly, the author assumed that an individual’s personality traits are the one linked to emotional labour, work engagement and job satisfaction. However, organisational culture and person-environment fit might also be one of the factors. This is because an employee may feel not satisfied with his job and do not actively engage in work if he feels that the organisation’s culture clashes with his values, despite him being extraverted. Secondly, the author linked the results of the study to the Polish culture, which may not be a perfect fit. For instance, he linked conscientious for emotional labour to the individualistic Polish culture. Hence professionals are more task orientated. However, research has showed that Poland is a hierarchical society, hence professionals may behave this way as they feel obligated to fulfil their tasks, not because they have a high level of conscientiousness. Lastly, the author assumed extraversion to be the main personality trait positively correlated to emotional labour, which led to the idea that work engagement and job satisfaction may also be linked this way to extraversion. However, other personality traits such as neuroticism prevailed to be the more important traits from the study. Hence the assumption made could affect the conclusions of the study.

Conclusion

Although long surveys can lead to inaccurate data collection, it is necessary and relevant to obtain more conclusive and less-generalised results. If there are too less questions and too less options to choose from, the data collected may be too general and not lead us to a conclusion. The study can be improved by spiltting the survey into various sections or multiple surveys so they see shorter. Hence this increases reliability and accuracy of the data collected.

Although one limitation of Koh’s study is his use of Likert scale potentially resulting in acquiescence response bias, Likert scale surveys are popular and commonly used due to its ease of construction and use (Erwin, 2014), and is still a relevant and reliable model for collecting data so long as it is carefully crafted to minimize bias (Gul, Qasem & Bhat, 2015; Yue, Hongyun & Hui, 2017). Despite the possibility of bias tainting his findings, the results were conclusive in determining many of the key predictors of JSE and JStr, and the relationship between JSE and JStr, as they concur with various other studies (Nalla, Paek & Lim, 2016; McVicar, 2016). Lastly, implications. This study helps organisations to better understand their employees and implement ways to increase JSE. Organisations can do so by understanding its own culture, and work towards possessing core values that are associated with competing cultural types. Additionally, this study has allowed employees to consider what results in JStr and how they can manage it.