Personality Traits and Career Satisfaction of Human Resource ...

Personality Traits and Career Satisfaction of
Human Resource Professionals


John W. Lounsbury
University of Tennessee, Knoxville and eCareerFit.com
Robert P. Steel
School of Management, University of Michigan-Dearborn
Lucy W. Gibson
eCareerFit.com, Knoxville, Tennessee
Adam W. Drost
eCareerFit.com, Dunwoody, Georgia

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Career Satisfaction – HR Professionals 2

Personality Traits and Career Satisfaction of
Human Resource Professionals

Occupational choice frameworks suggest that personality factors influence person-job fit. This
paper focuses on personality factors and career satisfactions of human resources (HR) managers.
‘Big Five’and narrow personality traits as well as managerial style variables were drawn from an
archive of 1846 HR managers and 1375 non-managers. Results indicated that HR managers
differed from 51,297 individuals in other occupations and from non-managerial HR specialists on
many of the study variables, most of which were also related to career satisfaction. Implications
for differentiation selection and development of HR managers were discussed.
Keywords: career satisfaction; personality traits; Holland’s vocational theory
Optimization of person-job fit has been an overarching theme of selection frameworks (e.g. Schneider 1987) and
vocational-choice models (e.g. Holland 1976). By following selection and placement strategies that optimize
person-job fit, an organization can populate its workforce with motivated and committed employees. Selection
and vocational-choice frameworks are also based on this underlying principle. Both types of frameworks assume
that individuals will respond more favorably to jobs that are congruent with their personalities. All that is really
different between selection and vocational-choice frameworks is the scope of the concept ‘job’. When selection
frameworks refer to the fit between an individual and a job, they are usually targeting a single, near-term position.
In contrast, when vocational-choice models refer to the concept of ‘a job’, they may actually mean the collection
of jobs that comprise an individual’s entire career.
‘Fit’ (or ‘congruence’) is a cornerstone principle of vocational-choice frameworks.
Holland (1996) argued that vocational satisfaction, stability and achievement
depend on the congruence between one’s personality and the environment in which
one works. Fit or congruence may be realized when the behavioral expectations of
a work role synchronize with the behavioral inclinations of a particular personality
type. If, for example, an extroverted individual finds outlets for his/her expressive
nature in the customer contact aspects of sales work, ‘congruence’, as defined by
Holland, has been achieved.
Traditionally, vocational-choice models have employed self-reports of personal interests as markers of
occupational preference (Ackerman and Heggestad 1997). However, organizational scholars have become
increasingly inclined to view occupational interests as components of personality (e.g. Barrick, Mount, and Gupta
2003; De Fruyt and Mervielde 1999). Empirical findings have been fuelling a rapprochement between the
personality literature and the occupational-interest literature. Several studies have shown that occupational
interests (e.g. Holland 1976) significantly overlap personality dimensions (Barrick, Mount, and Gupta 2003; De
Fruyt and Mervielde 1999). More recently, researchers have been combining broad-spectrum personality
measures (e.g. ‘Big Five’ personality dimensions) with narrow spectrum personality measures (e.g. optimism) to
assess fit (e.g. Logue, Lounsbury, and Leong 2007). A general consensus in research on personality has emerged
that all normal personality traits can be parsimoniously described by five broad traits, termed the ‘Big Five’ model
of personality (agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional resilience, extraversion and openness), which has
been found to generalize across a wide range of social-cultural settings (e.g. McCrae and Allik 2002) and
validated against many different criteria, including job performance (Salgado 1997), job satisfaction (Judge,
Heller, and Mount 2002), career success (Judge et al. 1999), life satisfaction (DeNeve and Cooper 1998) and
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Career Satisfaction – HR Professionals 3
academic performance (Lounsbury, Sundstrom, et al. 2003). However, a number of researchers have shown that
more narrow personality traits add incremental validity for a wide range of criteria above and beyond the ‘Big
Five’ traits (e.g. Paunonen and Ashton 2001; Schneider, Hough, and Dunnette 1996).
The current study utilized personality measures as a means of investigating the person-job fit of a specific
occupational group – human resource (HR) managers. This is an important group to study because HR managers
are often responsible for overseeing the general well-being and satisfaction of the workforce, but, ironically,
factors contributing to their own job adaptation and morale have received scant attention. As noted by Sadler-
Smith, Bagder, and Leat (2000), studies of morale and satisfaction have rarely singled out HR managers as a focal
population.
Career satisfaction
The literature on job satisfaction is voluminous (e.g. Brief 1998; Locke 1976; Smith, Kendall, and Hulin 1969),
but our emphasis here is on a less-studied, but related, construct – career satisfaction. Job satisfaction provides a
measure of job-specific affect, whereas career satisfaction represents an individual’s feelings of satisfaction or
dissatisfaction with an entire career. Our usage of the term ‘career’ follows Hall (1976, 4), viewing a career as the
entirety of ‘work-related experiences and activities over the span of a person’s life.’
There are a number of good reasons for studying career satisfaction. First, career satisfaction is an important
variable in its own right. It summarizes feelings about a lifetime of work – approximately 100,000 hours of toil
for the typical American worker (Career Strategists 2004).
Second, career satisfaction is a better fit with the objectives of the current study. By the time an individual
achieves the typical level of seniority of an HR manager position, he/she will have usually served in HR-specialist
roles (e.g. compensation specialist, training specialist) for a substantial period of apprenticeship. It is reasonable
to contend, therefore, that individuals rising to the level of HR manager will probably have committed to HR as a
career.
Third, recent literature lays the conceptual groundwork for a value-adding career satisfaction construct. Judge et
al. (1999, 622) partitioned career success into extrinsic and intrinsic components. Intrinsic success was
conceptualized as ‘an individual’s subjective reactions to his or her own career.’ Judge et al.’s notion of intrinsic
career success aligns closely with the current study’s concept of career satisfaction.
Fourth and lastly, researchers have begun to investigate the roots of career satisfaction. For example, career
satisfaction has been found to be a product of a variety of job-experience factors including salary progression
(Seibert, Crant, and Kraimer 1999), mentoring (Allen et al. 2004), hours worked (Wallace 2001) and satisfaction
with the opportunity to achieve career goals (Reitman and Schneer 2003).
There has also been interest in the relationship of personality factors to career satisfaction. Boudreau, Boswell,
and Judge (2001) found that agreeableness, conscientiousness, and extraversion were correlated positively with
career satisfaction in a sample of US executives. They also discovered that extraversion was correlated
significantly with the career satisfactions of European executives. In contrast, they found that neuroticism was
correlated negatively with career satisfaction in both of their executive samples.
Consonant with Boudreau et al.’s findings, Seibert and Kramer (2001) reported that extraversion was related
positively to career satisfaction in a sample of 496 workers. Additionally, they found that neuroticism again
emerged as a negative correlate of career satisfaction.
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Career Satisfaction – HR Professionals 4
Lounsbury, Loveland, et al. (2003) discovered that 13 different personality traits were correlated significantly
with career satisfaction in their sample of 5932 individuals undergoing career transitions. They determined that a
core set of three traits – emotional resilience, optimism and work drive – accounted for most of the explainable
variance in their measure of career satisfaction.
The current study
Although a direct test of person-job fit for HR managers was not feasible in the context of the current study, a
partial test was undertaken by examining personality traits differentiating HR managers from other occupations
and seeing which of these traits were related to career satisfaction. We start with a basic assumption derived from
Holland’s (1976, 1996) vocational theory and Schneider’s Attraction–Selection–Attrition (ASA) model
(Schneider 1987; Schneider, Goldstein, and Smith 1995): Individuals gravitate toward, are satisfied with, and
remain in occupations where there is a good fit between their personality and the work environment. There are
two logical corollaries of Holland’s fit model that have been generally verified by
subsequent research and are germane to the present study: (1) there are differences in
mean scores on personality characteristics associated with occupations that help
determine fit; and (2) higher scores on these personality characteristics are related to
higher levels of satisfaction. Thus, under the Holland model, scientists tend to have
higher mean scores on the investigative vocational interest scale and higher
investigative scores are associated with greater job satisfaction of scientists (Holland 1976, 1996). While attempts
to map personality traits onto occupations for purposes of determining fit are in the early stages (see, for example,
occupational profiles for the 16 PF (Cattell, Eber, and Tatsuoka 1970) and general work styles (O*NET 2008),
there is not at present an empirically validated personality trait profile for human resource managers against which
fit could be assessed. Based on the above assumptions, such personality traits for HR managers should at a
minimum display two qualities: they will differentiate HRMs from other occupations and they will be related to
career satisfaction for HRMs.
Accordingly, and because our dataset included personality information on over 50,000 individuals in many
different occupations, we first addressed this research question: ‘RQ1: on which personality traits and managerial
style variables do HR managers differ from other occupations?’ The personality traits assessed for this were the
‘Big Five’ traits, chosen because of their prominence as definers of normal personality and previously established
relationships with career satisfaction (Lounsbury, Gibson, et al. 2003), as well as seven narrow personality traits
found to be related to career satisfaction for occupations in general – optimism, assertiveness, visionary style,
work drive, image management, intrinsic motivation and customer service orientation.
Continuing with the second assumption derived from Holland’s vocational theory, we also examined the
following research question: ‘RQ2: Which personality traits and managerial style variables are related to career
satisfaction for HR managers?’ From the perspective of the Holland model, we wanted to see which traits both
differentiated HR managers from other occupations and which were also related positively to career satisfaction.
Such traits could potentially be used for a variety of applications, including career planning, coaching, pre-
employment selection, promotional testing, succession planning, and leadership training and development for
individuals considering an HR manager career or currently employed in an HR manager capacity.
A second aspect of the current study involved comparative analysis of HR managers to non-managerial HR
specialists. Literature on the roles of HR professionals draws distinctions between HR managers and other HR
professionals who work in nonmanagerial capacities (e.g. Mathis and Jackson 2002; Mondy, Noe, and Premeaux
2004). Because our dataset included personality data on HR managers and other kinds of nonmanagerial HR
specialists (e.g. training, compensation specialists), we were able to compare groups of individuals who had
chosen either a managerial or non-managerial HR career path. If personality differences characterize these two
groups, then personality factors may explain why HR managers have chosen managerial careers instead of opting
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Career Satisfaction – HR Professionals 5
for other types of HR roles. Thus, our third research question was: ‘RQ3: Are there differences between HR
managers and non-managers on the personality traits and managerial style variables examined in the first research
question?’ We examined whether there were differences in mean scores on personality traits between these two
groups. There already is some evidence of differences between HR managers and HR non-managers. Hoque and
Noon (2001) found that HR specialists, most of whom were managers, were more involved in strategic planning
than personnel specialists, the majority of whom were non-managers. Therefore, we predicted that HR managers
and non-managers would differ significantly on measures of managerial style involving strategic responsibilities.
Accordingly, we tested the following hypothesis:
H1: HR managers would have higher visionary scores than non-managers.
Since Cattell et al. (1970) reported generally higher assertiveness for managers than non-managers, we also
hypothesized that:
H2: HR managers would have higher assertiveness scores than non-managers.
A third aspect of the current study focused on potential differences between US and UK human resource
managers. Standard HR textbooks increasingly emphasize the global nature of contemporary business practice
and the internationalization of the HR profession (e.g. Mondy, Noe, and Premeaux 2004). The current study’s
dataset included domestic and international HR-manager groups. We were able to compare personality-career
satisfaction relationships for HR managers in the US to HR managers from the UK. Whether the groups from the
two countries are similar or dissimilar can inform the ongoing general debate over adoption by HR researchers of
a more universalistic outlook for the profession. A universalistic outlook emphasizes similarity between nations in
HR practices, whereas a more-traditional contextualist outlook would emphasize ‘diversity across nations’ (Pot
and Paawe 2004, 155).
Although research on this topic is limited, some differences may exist. Strauss (2001, 874) views HR
management in the US as being generally different from HR management in the UK, with the former emphasizing
more traditional personnel functions, and the latter placing relatively more emphasis on ‘all the organization’s
people-oriented policies and practices’. Strauss contends that HR managers in the UK. stress people-oriented
programmes, like employee involvement initiatives, more than their stateside counterparts.
Such observations led to our fourth research question: ‘RQ4: Are there differences between US and the UK HR
managers on the personality traits and managerial style variables?’
Method
Overview
Data for this study were extracted from an archival database provided by eCareerfit.com, a company that offers
online, personality-based career assessments to companies for employee career development, succession planning,
leadership development, mentoring, coaching, workforce planning and outplacement/transition services. We
acknowledge some advantages and disadvantages of using archival data sources for research (see, for example,
Hoyle, Harris, and Judd 2001 and Jex and Britt 2008), but the former are considered by many to outweigh the
latter as secondary analyses are becoming more frequently used as large-scale archival data sources continue to be
made available to researchers (Shultz, Hoffman, and Reiter-Palmon 2008). We chose to use an archival data
source for the following reasons: The responses represented data from reliable and previously validated
(Lounsbury, Loveland, et al. 2003; Lounsbury and Gibson 2008) scales that were readily available from the
Internet and, were collected via a non-reactive form of measurement in that respondents were not participating in
a research study. Because participants were providing responses to questions so that they could receive
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Career Satisfaction – HR Professionals 6
information about their personality and personal style for purposes of self-awareness and career planning, the
threat of positive response bias, which typically characterizes personality assessment (cf. Pervin and John 1997),
was minimized. The database contained information on individuals from a wide range of occupations and
industries, including data on HR professionals from the US and UK. All data was collected originally on the
Internet as part of a career planning service offered by an international strategic human resources company. Data
was collected over the period March of 2003 to January of 2008.
Participants
The database we used comprised a total of 1846 HR managers, 1375 HR non-managers and 51,297 individuals
employed in a wide range of jobs from many different companies in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Of the 3221 HR managers and non-managers, 35% were male, 65% were female; 93% were from the US and 7%
from the UK. Participation rates by age
group were as follows: 21% were under 30;
23% were 30–39; 33% were 40–49; and
23% were 50 and over. Race/ethnic data
were not available. For both US and
UK managers, the most common job title
listed was HR manager. For the US
non-managers, the most common job titles
were HR assistant and HR specialist.
Respondents came from many different
industries including banking and
financial services (10%), information
technology (5%), communications (4%), retail (4%), health care (2%), science and technology (2%),
entertainment (2%) and automotive (1%).
Personality factors
The personality instrument used in the current study was the ‘Personal Style Inventory’ (PSI), a work-based
personality measure. The PSI has been used in a variety of settings internationally, mainly for career development
and pre-employment screening purposes, for which there is extensive evidence of criterion-related and construct
validity (Lounsbury, Gibson, and Hamrick 2004; Lounsbury, Gibson, et al. 2003; Lounsbury, Loveland, et al.
2003; Lounsbury et al. 2004; Williamson, Pemberton, and Lounsbury 2005). All of the PSI items had five-point
response scales with bipolar verbal anchors. Below is a sample item from the Optimism scale.
When the future is uncertain, I tend to
__ __ __ __ __
When the future is uncertain, I
anticipate positive outcomes.
1 2 3 4 5
tend to anticipate problems.
A brief description of each of the personality and managerial style measures used in the present study is presented
below along with the number of items in each scale and the coefficient alpha for the total sample.
‘Big Five’ personality traits
•
Agreeableness/teamwork: propensity for working as part of a team and functioning cooperatively on
work group efforts (six items; coefficient alpha = .83)
•
Conscientiousness: dependability, reliability, trustworthiness and inclination to adhere to company
norms, rules and values (eight items; coefficient alpha = .74)
•
Emotional resilience: overall level of adjustment and emotional resilience in the face of job stress and
pressure (six items; coefficient alpha = .81)
•
Extraversion: tendency to be sociable, outgoing, gregarious, expressive, warmhearted and talkative
(seven items; coefficient alpha = .83)
•
Openness: receptivity/openness to change, innovation, novel experience and new learning (nine
items; coefficient alpha = .78).
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Career Satisfaction – HR Professionals 7
Narrow personality traits
•
Assertiveness: a person’s disposition to speak up on matters of importance, expressing ideas and
opinions confidently, defending personal beliefs, seizing the initiative, and exerting influence in a
forthright but not aggressive manner (eight items; coefficient alpha = .83)
•
Customer service orientation: striving to provide highly responsive, personalized, quality service to
(internal and external) customers; putting the customer first and trying to make the customer satisfied,
even if it means going above and beyond the normal job description or policy (seven items;
coefficient alpha = .69)
•
Intrinsic motivation: a disposition to be motivated by intrinsic work factors, such as challenge,
meaning, autonomy, variety and significance (six items; coefficient alpha = .82)
•
Image management: reflects a person’s disposition to monitor, observe, regulate and control the self-
presentation and image s/he projects during interactions with other people (six items; coefficient
alpha = .82)
•
Optimism: having an upbeat, hopeful outlook concerning situations, people, prospects and the future,
even in the face of difficulty and adversity; a tendency to minimize problems and persist in the face of
setbacks (eight items; coefficient alpha = .85)
•
Work drive: disposition to work for long hours (including overtime) and an irregular schedule;
investing high levels of time and energy into job and career, and being motivated to extend oneself, if
necessary, to finish projects, meet deadlines, be productive and achieve job success (eight items;
coefficient alpha = .81)
•
Visionary style: focusing on long-term planning, strategy, and envisioning future possibilities and
contingencies (eight items; coefficient alpha = .88)
Managerial constructs
Based directly on the two main managerial factors found in the Ohio State Leadership studies (Bass 1990) –
initiating structure and consideration – two managerial constructs of the PSI were used in the present study: task
structuring – referring to a manager’s disposition toward planning, scheduling, monitoring and organizing the
work of subordinates (eight items; coefficient alpha = .87) – and managerial human relations – referring to a
manager’s responsiveness to the concerns of his/her subordinates, being empathetic, and showing consideration
for their needs and feelings (nine items; coefficient alpha = .78). These two scales have been validated in previous
studies on career satisfaction (e.g. Lounsbury, Loveland, et al. 2003).
Career satisfaction
A five-item scale was used to measure career satisfaction (Lounsbury et al. 2007), with items assessing
satisfaction with career progress and trajectory, career advancement, future career prospects and career as a
whole. Each career satisfaction item was placed on a five-point response scale with
verbally opposing anchors at each end (e.g. ‘I am very satisfied with the way my career
has progressed so far’ vs. ‘I am very dissatisfied with the way my career has progressed
so far’). Coefficient alpha for the career satisfaction scale = .81. This career satisfaction
measure was introduced into the dataset in 2006, so there is a smaller sample size for it
(n = 310).
Results
Our first research question focused on personality factor differences between HR managers and individuals in
other occupations, for which we used an independent sample t-test to compare the mean scores of HR managers
against the mean scores of individuals from other occupations on a variety of personality measures. Results of this
analysis are summarized in Table 1. Compared to the other occupations, the HR managers had significantly higher
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Career Satisfaction – HR Professionals 8
mean scores on all of the personality and managerial style variables except conscientiousness and task structuring
in which cases the means for HR managers (3.26 and 2.40, respectively) were significantly lower than the
corresponding means for other occupations (3.40 and 2.60, respectively) as indicated by the t tests t(53,121) = –
4.34 and –12.65, respectively).
The second research question (RQ2) focused on potential linkages between career satisfaction and the personality
traits of HR managers. To evaluate RQ2, Pearson correlation coefficients were computed to reflect the
relationships between career satisfaction and the other study variables, with results displayed in Table 2. Career
satisfaction was positively and significantly related to two of the ‘Big Five’ traits – openness (r = .17, p < 01) and
emotional resilience (r = .46, p < 01) – as well as three of the narrow personality traits – optimism (r = .49, p < 01),
work drive (r = .13, p < 05) and customer service (r = .18, p < 01) – and with managerial human relations (r = .16, p
< 01).
Table 1
Mean Scores on Personality Traits for HR Managers Versus All Other Occupations

t
Variable
test
Group
Mean
Std. Deviation
Openness
HR Managers
4.02
.60
13.63**
All Other Occupations
3.81
.67

Conscientiousness
HR Managers
3.26
.69
-4.34**
All Other Occupations
3.34
.71

Emotional Resilience
HR Managers
3.58
.67
7.62**
All Other Occupations
3.46
.71

Agreeableness/Teamwork
HR Managers
3.78
.71
12.87**
All Other Occupations
3.54
.77

Extraversion
HR Managers
4.11
.67
16.86**
All Other Occupations
3.79
.77

Assertiveness
HR Managers
3.97
.64
19.51**
All Other Occupations
3.58
.82

Image Management
HR Managers
2.74
.77
6.01**
All Other Occupations
2.60
.81

Intrinsic Motivation
HR Managers
3.59
.77
5.74**
All Other Occupations
3.48
.81

Optimism
HR Managers
4.03
.67
11.02**
All Other Occupations
3.83
.77

Work Drive
HR Managers
3.64
.73
15.50**
All Other Occupations
3.35
.79

Customer Service
HR Managers
4.48
.40
8.14**
All Other Occupations
4.34
.45

Visionary Style
HR Managers
3.18
.80
12.61**
All Other Occupations
2.94
.77

Managerial Human Relations
HR Managers
4.14
.52
15.30**
All Other Occupations
3.93
.55

Managerial Task Structuring
HR Managers
2.40
.63
-12.65**
All Other Occupations
2.60
.68

Note: For HR Managers n = 1846; for all other occupations n = 51,297.

** p < .01
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Career Satisfaction – HR Professionals 9
The third research (RQ3) focused on potential personality differences between HR managers and HR non-
managers; RQ4 dealt with potential personality differences between US and UK HR managers. To assess RQ3
and RQ4 simultaneously, we compared four groups – US HR managers, US HR non-managers, UK HR managers
and UK HR non-managers – using a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) for each personality variable and a
one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to assess net differences among the four groups.
Using Wilk’s criterion, a significant multivariate F was obtained, F (12, 739) = 1.18, p < .01). The results of the
univariate one-way ANOVA’s revealed significant differences between the groups for all variables except
conscientiousness and customer service. Post hoc tests were conducted for each significant univariate F using
Tukey b comparisons. The results of these post hoc tests are summarized in Table 3, with common superscripts
indicating no significant difference between means and different superscripts indicating significant differences
between means. The most common pattern was for the means of HR managers in both the US and UK to be
significantly higher than the means for HR non-managers in both the US and the UK, including openness,
emotional resilience, agreeableness/teamwork, extraversion, assertiveness, image management, optimism, work
drive and visionary style. There were generally no significant differences between the US and UK groups, with
the exception of openness, assertiveness and image management, where the US non-managerial HR group had
higher means than the UK non-managerial group.
Table 2
Intercorrelations of Study Variables



Variable
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
(10)
(11)
(12)
(13)
(14)
(15)
(1) Openness
---
-.10**
.26**
.30**
.37**
.47**
.09**
.01*
.35**
.35**
.31**
.42**
.22**
-.13**
.17**
(2) Conscientiousness

---
.22**
.02*
.06*
.00
-.22**
.02*
.13**
.15**
.14**
-.36**
.10**
.36**
.04
(3) Emotional


---
.20**
.34**
.35**
-.15**
.06**
.68**
.17**
.30**
.08**
.17**
-.01*
.46**
Resilience
(4) Agreeableness/



---
.41**
.29**
.04*
.10**
.26**
.14**
.26**
.15**
.31**
-.06*
.11
Teamwork
(5) Extraversion




---
.54**
.09**
-.04**
.46**
.24**
.39**
.23**
.44**
.01
.25**
(6) Assertiveness





---
.15**
-.12**
.41**
.43**
.35**
.38**
.31**
-.05**
.24**
(7) Image Management






---
-.30**
-.08**
.09**
-.04**
.17**
-.03**
-.03**
-.06
(8) Intrinsic Motivation







---
.09**
-.13**
.08**
-.09**
.13**
-.09**
.11
(9) Optimism








---
.23**
.39**
.19**
.30**
-.04**
.49**
(10) Work Drive









---
.29**
.18**
.16**
.10**
.13*
(11) Customer Service










---
.08**
.36**
-.03**
.18**
(12) Visionary Style











---
.06**
-.26**
.07
(13) Human Relations












---
.01
.16**
(14) Task Structuring













---
-.01
(15) Career Satisfaction














---
Note: Sample size for intercorrelations of personality traits = 3221; sample size for correlations between personality traits and managerial
variables = 1846; sample size for correlations of personality and managerial variables with career satisfaction = 310.

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Career Satisfaction – HR Professionals 10
Table 3
Mean Scores for Personality Traits for U.S. and UK HR Managers and Specialists



Variable
US HR
US HR
UK HR
UK HR
Specialists
Managers
Specialists
Managers
Openness
3.74b
4.02 c
3.52 a
3.99 c
Conscientiousness
3.31
3.26
3.42
3.26
Emotional Resilience
3.38 a
3.58 b
3.40 a
3.61 b
Agreeableness/Teamwork
3.41 a
3.78 b
3.37 a
3.74 b
Extraversion
3.76 a
4.11 b
3.63 a
4.03 b
Assertiveness
3.36 b
3.97 c
3.16 a
3.91 c
Image Management
2.64 b
2.74 b
2.41 a
2.69 b
Intrinsic Motivation
3.69 a,b
3.59 a
3.83 b
3.63 a
Optimism
3.81 a
4.03 b
3.84 a
4.00 b
Work Drive
3.16 a
3.64 b
3.09 a
3.64 b
Customer Service
4.35
4.44
4.41
4.41
Visionary Style
2.88 a
3.18 b
2.74 a
3.12 b
Managerial Human Relations
--
4.14 a
--
4.11 a
Managerial Task Structuring
--
2.40 a
--
2.32 a
Sample Size
1280
1712
95
134
Note: Groups with a common superscript do not differ from each other at a p < .05 level as indicated by a Tukey b test (Guilford &
Fruchter, 1979).



As displayed in Table 3, Hypothesis 1 – concerning higher visionary scores for HR managers than non-managers
– was confirmed in both the US and UK samples with the finding that the mean visionary scores for the US HR
managers is 3.18 and non-managers is 2.88, while the mean visionary scores for the
UK HR managers is 3.12 and non-managers is 2.72.
Also as can be seen in Table 3, Hypothesis 2 – concerning higher assertiveness scores
for HR managers than non-managers – was confirmed in both the US and UK
samples by the finding that the mean assertiveness scores for the US HR managers is
3.97 and non-managers is 3.36, while the mean assertiveness scores for the UK HR
managers is 3.91 and non-managers is 3.16.
Discussion
Management researchers have become increasingly aware of the importance of personality in shaping orientations
toward work and career (McCrae and Costa 1997). Personality has long been viewed as an important determinant
of career choice (e.g. Holland 1976), though increasingly researchers are recognizing that personality also affects
work-role functioning. As a case in point, personality traits have been found to have functional value for
individuals in solving problems. As Buss (1996, 192) noted, personality traits ‘represent individual differences in
the qualities or resources individuals can draw upon to solve adaptive problems.’ Buss suggests that an
emotionally stable ‘person may rely on steadiness of nerves, inner resilience, and the capacity to rally from
setback’ (1996, 192–3), which allows the person to focus on work demands without performance being impaired
by anxiety, worrying, loss of energy, etc. Similar examples can be formulated to show how different personality
traits are involved in successful job performance and such outcomes as job satisfaction and career success (see,
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