Importance of Personality Testing in Organizational Behavior Management

This annotated bibliography analyzes the importance of personality testing in organizational behavior management. It includes four journal articles that highlight different issues of personality testing. The articles discuss the impact of individual personality on employee engagement, satisfaction, loyalty, and organizational attractiveness. They also explore the relationship between personality traits and organizational citizenship behavior. The findings emphasize the significance of personality testing in improving organizational effectiveness.

Running head: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

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ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Thesis:
The annotated bibliography aims to analyze the importance of personality testing, a
crucial aspect of organizational behavior management, in ensuring organizational effectiveness
and attractiveness. The bibliography will include four journal articles each highlighting different
issues of personality testing.
Handa, M., & Gulati, A. (2014). Employee engagement: Does individual personality
matter. Journal of Management Research, 14(1), 57.
Individual personality contributes towards the effectiveness of employee engagement
resulting in the overall smooth functioning of an organization, state the authors in this article. In
this article, the authors highlight the importance of individual personality on employee
engagement. According to the authors, the positive personality traits of extraversion and
conscientiousness have association with positive employee engagement. In order to prove this,
the authors conducted a study with various retail organization employees and found that the Big
Five Personality traits of conscientiousness and extraversion correlated with employee
engagement. Significant influence of personality traits could be found when it comes to
employee engagement as the authors revealed in their study. Although their study was limited to
the frontline retail employees in Asia, the implications of the findings could be applied to
employees of other industries in other parts of the world as well.
It could thus be discerned that the personality testing is an important indicator of
employee engagement. This also implicitly relates to the overall organizational behavior and
success as well.

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Jani, D., & Han, H. (2014). Personality, satisfaction, image, ambience, and loyalty: Testing
their relationships in the hotel industry. International Journal of Hospitality
Management, 37, 11-20.
In this article, the authors highlight the importance of agreeableness, extraversion and
neuroticism as the Big Five personality factors affecting the satisfaction on guests’ loyalty and
hotel image in the hotel industry. The authors found in their research that more than hotel image,
satisfaction had a greater impact on loyalty. They defined personality as the psychological
qualities that establish the feelings, thinking and behavior of an individual that are different and
enduring. In the hotel industry, the personality of the employees and the hotel in general plays an
important role in satisfying the guests and transforming them into loyal customers. The Big Five
Personality tests helps in determining the kind of behavior the hotel guests expect from the staff.
It was found in their study that more than openness and conscientiousness, extraversion,
agreeableness and neuroticism had marked influence on the hotel image and the overall loyalty
of the guests.
Therefore, it is evident from the discussion in this article that personality testing is crucial
in determining the success of an organization.
Meyer, R. D., Dalal, R. S., José, I. J., Hermida, R., Chen, T. R., Vega, R. P., ... & Khare, V.
P. (2014). Measuring Job-Related Situational Strength and Assessing Its Interactive Effects
With Personality on Voluntary Work Behavior. Journal of Management, 40(4), 1010-1041.
The authors in this article discuss the support for theoretically based moderator effects on
organizational citizenship behavior amongst other issues. In one of the many studies undertaken
by the authors in this article, they found that among the Big Five Personality factors,

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conscientiousness indicates organizational citizenship behavior as well as counterproductive
work behavior. They also found that neuroticism and extraversion are the most biologically
embedded of the Big Five and hence, proved to be least sensitive to situational factors. The
hypotheses they developed was supported by their study in that the situational strength and
moderated the relationship between conscientiousness and organizational citizenship behavior. In
addition, the authors also found that the trait of agreeableness and its relationship with
organizational citizenship behavior was also moderated by situational strength. The
conscientiousness and agreeableness personality traits where found to be weak in situations
where organizational citizenship behavior was strong and strong in case where the organizational
citizenship behavior was weak.
The article thus brings to light that personality tests reveal the relationship between OCB
and situational strength.
Van Hoye, G., & Turban, D. B. (2015). Applicant–Employee Fit in Personality: Testing
predictions from similarity-attraction theory and trait activation theory. International
Journal of Selection and Assessment, 23(3).
The authors have analyzed the personality traits of conscientiousness, agreeableness and
extraversion and their affects on organizational attractiveness by examining the applicant-employ
fit in this article. In the views of the authors, applicants joining any new organization look for
compatibility with the employees based on their personality. Their study revealed that the
agreeableness and conscientiousness traits possessed highly by the employees did not result in
organizational attractiveness for applicants low in these traits. On the contrary, employees’
agreeableness and conscientiousness traits were considered important factors of organizational

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attractiveness for applicants high on these traits. The authors found a similar pattern for the
personality trait of extraversion as well. Therefore, for those applicants who have lower
personality traits, an organization having employees with same level of traits is attractive.
However, applicants who possess high personality traits could only be attracted when the
employees align with their high personality traits thus resulting in a positive association of
employee personality traits and organizational attraction.
It is therefore visible that personality testing is important in understanding the behavioral
traits of the employees to improve organizational effectiveness.

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References:
Handa, M., & Gulati, A. (2014). Employee engagement: Does individual personality
matter. Journal of Management Research, 14(1), 57.
Jani, D., & Han, H. (2014). Personality, satisfaction, image, ambience, and loyalty: Testing their
relationships in the hotel industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 37,
11-20.
Meyer, R. D., Dalal, R. S., José, I. J., Hermida, R., Chen, T. R., Vega, R. P., ... & Khare, V. P.
(2014). Measuring Job-Related Situational Strength and Assessing Its Interactive Effects
With Personality on Voluntary Work Behavior. Journal of Management, 40(4), 1010-
1041.
Van Hoye, G., & Turban, D. B. (2015). Applicant–Employee Fit in Personality: Testing
predictions from similarity-attraction theory and trait activation theory. International
Journal of Selection and Assessment, 23(3).