A meta-analysis of the relations between personality and workplace deviance: Big Five versus HEXACO

Abstract

We present a comprehensive meta-analysis of the relations between personality and workplace deviance. More specifically, we compared the validities of the Big Five domains with those of the HEXACO domains for predicting workplace deviance. We found that HEXACO Honesty-Humility shows the strongest relation with workplace deviance, followed by Conscientiousness (Big Five and HEXACO) and Agreeableness (Big Five and HEXACO). Big Five Neuroticism (positively) and HEXACO Emotionality (negatively) also correlate with workplace deviance. However, HEXACO and Big Five Openness to Experience and Extraversion do not contribute substantially to the prediction of workplace deviance. For the most part, these results support the conceptual differences between the Big Five and the HEXACO personality models. We also found that the HEXACO domains (31.97%) explain more variance in workplace deviance than the Big Five domains (19.05%). Consequently, the HEXACO model appears to be a viable alternative to the Big Five model when predicting and explaining levels of workplace deviance. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings as well as limitations and future research ideas are discussed.