Utilizing Five Factor Model facets to conceptualize counterproductive, unethical, and organizational citizenship workplace behaviors

Abstract

General personality traits have potential utility for assisting with employee selection processes and predicting employee behaviors. Previous research has examined and provided evidence for the Five Factor Model (FFM) personality domains with positive and negative workplace behaviors, but few studies have examined these relationships at the facet level. To address this gap in the literature, the current study examined the association between workplace behaviors and FFM facets in both university students and Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) samples. Resampling techniques were utilized to examine the relationships of FFM personality traits, with both positively oriented (i.e., organizational citizenship) and negatively oriented (i.e., workplace deviance, and unethical) workplace behaviors. The results demonstrated that FFM facets are meaningfully associated with positive and negative workplace behaviors and highlighted the evidence for the utility of considering facet level relationships, beyond domain level analyses. Counterproductive workplace behaviors were primarily associated negatively with facets of agreeableness and conscientiousness, and organizational citizenship behaviors were primarily associated positively with facets of extraversion and conscientiousness and negatively with neuroticism. The applied utility of personality trait assessment and facet-level analysis is discussed relative to workplace behaviors.