Big-five personality and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Do you realize that your OCB (organizational citizenship behavior) is influenced by your personality? The vast majority of you will say "No" to that question. However, this is not correct, as research has shown that an individual's personality significantly impacts their OCB (OCB).

In 2005, a new concept called "organization citizenship behavior" (OCB) arose within the study of organization behavior, and nowadays, OCB is associated with specific character traits. Employee conduct outside the scope of one's official duties is organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). The term refers to when workers perform tasks that are outside the scope of their job responsibilities. A person's personality consists of their inherent behavioral, cognitive, and emotional characteristics, which can be traced back to either their genetics or their upbringing. Additionally, the well-known big five model is used to classify a person's personality into one of five distinct dimensions: extroversion, introversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, and conscientiousness (Funder, 1995).

Although managers and business owners are often associated with "organization citizenship behaviors" (OCB), experts in the field of organizational behavior have suggested that these attitudes and actions are malleable at the individual level.

People who are more extroverted tend to be more outgoing, confident, dominant, impulsive, and chatty than those who are more introverted (Funder, 1995). These individuals go above and beyond the call of duty to help the company succeed. As a result, the company benefits from increased production, better teamwork, and happier employees. Researchers concluded that those who score higher on the extroversion scale are more likely to engage in OCB activities (BARRICK and MOUNT, 1991).

But agreeableness is characterized by qualities like openness to others, willingness to help, and adaptability (Funder, 1995). Team-oriented and communicative, these workers see it as their mission to improve the company as a whole through their efforts. More agreeable employees, according to the studies undertaken on this topic, engage in a wider range of organizational citizenship behaviors (Hashim et al., 2017).

Individuals who exhibit neurotic characteristics, such as anxiety, depression, anger, embarrassment, feeling, insecurity, and worry, are said to be neurotic (Funder, 1995). Because of their constant fretfulness and irritability, they are avoiding any tasks that have not been specifically given to them. In addition, workers who exhibit high levels of neuroticism tend to see their jobs negatively. As a result, research have shown that employees who score higher on the neuroticism scale also score lower on measures of organizational citizenship (Kumar, Bakhshi and Rani, 2009).

Characteristics like inventiveness, curiosity, sensitivity to the arts, and a thirst for adventure enhance an open mind (Funder, 1995). These people are open to the novel perspectives of others. Accordingly, higher levels of openness to experience predict higher levels of organizational citizenship behavior (Kumar, Bakhshi & Rani, 2009). (BARRICK and MOUNT, 1991).

People who are conscientious are those who are meticulous, responsible, organized, diligent, and accomplishment driven (Funder, 1995). They are naturally diligent workers with lofty goals. Employees that share these traits are highly sought after, and their contributions to the OCB are rewarded (Hashim et al., 2017).Therefore, employees with traits like extroversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, and conscientiousness (excluding neuroticism) have a beneficial effect on the organizational citizenship behaviors of their colleagues. Lastly, taking a worker's personality type into account helps boost Organization Citizenship Behavior and productivity.

BARRICK, M. R. and MOUNT, M. K. (1991) ‘THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS AND JOB PERFORMANCE: A META‐ANALYSIS’, Personnel Psychology. doi: 10.1111/j.1744-6570.1991.tb00688.x.

Funder, D. C. (1995) ‘On the accuracy of personality judgment: A realistic approach’, Psychological Review. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.102.4.652.

Hashim, A. et al. (2017) ‘The Relationship between Big Five Personality and Organizational Citizenship Behavior’, in Proceeding of the 4th International Conference on Management and Muamalah 2017 (ICoMM 2017), pp. 320–340. Available at: http://conference.kuis.edu.my/icomm/4th/eproceedings/IC 029.pdf.

Kumar, K., Bakhshi, A. and Rani, E. (2009) ‘Linking the Big Five personality domains to Organizational citizenship behavior’, International Journal of Psychological Studies. doi: 10.5539/ijps.v1n2p73.