“Honesty-Humility and Conscientiousness are important in understanding individual’s norms around equity, exchange, and their propensity to engage in discretionary workplace behavior.”
Purpose: To understand who engages in positive and negative workplace behaviors, and why they do so.
Summary: Employees’ perception of fairness and justice in the workplace may influence their engagement in negative and positive organizational behaviors. Workplace deviance defines the negative workplace behaviors, such as theft and negative behavior towards co-workers that threatens the well-being of the organization and/or it’s members. On the other hand, organizational citizenship behaviors entail positive discretionary behaviors, such as volunteering and helping co-workers that support social and organizational success. Previous research has found that certain personality traits predict workplace deviance and organizational citizenship behaviors, however, the reasons why these traits lead certain individuals to engage in these behaviors remain unclear.
In an effort to explain the relationship between personality traits and negative and positive workplace behaviors, we surveyed both a student and an employee sample. We predicted and found that individuals who were honest, humble, conscientious and, to a lesser extent, agreeable were more likely to engage in organizational citizenship behaviors and less likely to engage in workplace deviance. This is because these individuals, called Benevolents, were disposed towards focusing on what they could contribute to their employers and had a higher tolerance for unfairness and injustice in an organization. Conversely, individuals that scored lower on these personality traits were more likely to engage in workplace deviance and less likely to engage in organizational citizenship behaviors. Entitleds or individuals who were disposed towards focusing on the rewards they could receive from their employers had a lower tolerance for unfairness and injustice in the workplace. Individual differences in preference and tolerance of under or over-reward in the workplace offer an explanation to why certain personality traits lead to increased or decreased engagement in negative and positive workplace behaviors.
Practical implication: The findings of this study emphasize the importance to recruit for individuals who are honest, humble, and conscientious to promote organizational citizenship behaviors and decrease workplace deviance in workplaces. Further, organizations may communicate and frame decisions according to individuals’ disposition towards focusing on contribution or rewards. For example, it may be more beneficial to accent the rewards of a decision for Entitleds or individuals who tend to be less honest, humble and conscientious, and frame the benefits of contributing to a situation for Benvolents or individuals who are more honest, humble and conscientious.
Summary of Bourdage, J. S., Goupal, A., Neilson, T., Lukacik, E. R., & Lee, N. (2018). Personality, equity sensitivity, and discretionary workplace behavior. Personality and Individual Differences, 120, 144-150.
