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Faculty of Business Studies
MSc in Business Studies – Managing and Leading People
Master Thesis:
“The Relationship between Employee Personality and Employee
Performance; in the Service Sector of the Netherlands”
Student: Afentra Tapou
Address: Honingen 16,1083 JP Amsterdam Tel: 0616248368
Student Number:10390960 E-mail: afentra.tapou@gmail.com
First supervisor: Daphne Dekker
Second supervisor: Wendelien van Eerde
26 February 2014, first draft 14 April 2014, second draft
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Table of Contents
Abstract ………...…………5
Introduction ………6
Chapter 1- Literature Review………..………...11
1.1. Service Quality……….……11
1.2. Big Five Personality Traits……….……..…...14
1.3. Relationship between Big Five Personality Traits and Service Quality……….17
Chapter 2 – Research methodology………...……….….22
2.1. Sample Description………...…22 2.2. Procedure……….………24 2.3. Description of Measures………….………...…24 Chapter 3 - Results………28 3.1.Descriptive Statistics………....………28 3.2. Correlation-Descriptive- Reliability………...28
3.3. Regression Results for Empathy Dimension of service Quality…..………,…….….31
3.4. Regression Results for Reliability Dimension of Service Quality…….………..…..33
3.5. Regression Results for Responsiveness Dimension of Service Quality………....….35
3.6. Regression Results for the Assurance Dimension of Service Quality……..…...37
3 4.1. Limitations………..………..…...42 4.2. Future research………...………...…..43 Chapter 5-Conclusion………...44 Chapter 6- References ……….45
Appendix………51
List of Tables and Figures Chapter 1 – Literature Review. Table 1: Service’s Quality Dimensions…………...…13
Chapter 1 – Literature Revie Table 2: Big Five Personality Traits Dimensions……...15
Chapter 2 – Research Question. Figure 1: Research Model………...10
Chapter 3 – Results. Table 3: Descriptives, Reliability and Correlations………....30
Chapter 3 – Results. Table 4: Empathy Dimension of Service Quality………….….…..32
Chapter 3 – Results. Table 5: Reliability Dimension of Service Quality……….……….34
Chapter 3 – Results. Table 6: Responsiveness Dimension of Service Quality……....…..36
Chapter 3 – Results. Table 7: Assurance Dimension of Service Quality………...……38
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Abstract
The aim of this research is to summarize the knowledge that has occurred over the last years concerning the relationship between the employees’ personality and performance in the service field. More specifically, this paper aims to contribute in understanding which
characteristics of the employees’ personality can increase the Service Quality. In order to test the relationship mentioned above four hypotheses and five sub-hypotheses were created. The study of personality was held through the Five Factor Model (FFM), while the study of Service Quality was held through “Servqual”. Then a quantitative study has been conducted in three different kinds of service companies in The Netherlands and a total of 108 employees and 324 costumers answered the questionnaires. In overall, the results showed that there is no significant relationship between the Five Personality Traits and Service Quality. However, two sub-hypotheses regarding the negative relationship between Empathy and Neuroticism and the positive relationship between Reliability and Conscientiousness were approved. Finally, the results indicated that the control variable Gender has a significant relationship with the dimension of Service Quality Assurance.
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Introduction
Recent studies show that the service sector attracts growing attention (Olorunniwo & Hsu, 2006) due to the fact that its role is becoming more and more vital in the contemporary world. One reason for that is that industrialized countries tend to shift their economy from materials’ production to service offering (Ueltschy, Laroche, Eggert, & Bindl, 2007). Over the last twenty years, researchers have focused on the understanding of how costumers experience Service Quality. Evaluating the quality of services is more difficult than evaluating products, because of their intangible nature (Pollack, 2009).
Nowadays, successful companies aim to the satisfaction of the clients, and for that purpose, offering a high quality service is necessary (Ismail, Harson, Ibrahim, & Isa, 2009). Based on the Service Profit Chain (SPC), customers’ satisfaction results to customer loyalty, which then leads to profitability and growth (Homburg, Wieseke, & Hoyer, 2009).
Customers’ opinions about the services are of major importance for the company, because the costumer, who is satisfied by the quality of the service, is more likely to become a returning costumer of this organization. In general, it is less expensive for the company to keep a current costumer than to try attracting a new one (Schneider, White, & Paul, 1998).
According to many researchers, another issue that is of great interest during the last twenty five years has become the link between employees’ personality and job performance (Huntz & Donovan, 2000). Based on Homburg et al.’s (2009) research, satisfied customers are those whose expectations are met by the performance of the employees. Thus, if there is an increase in the employees’ performance, so there will be an increase in the customers’ satisfaction (Homburg et al., 2009).
7 Human nature is not stable. People’s reactions differentiate and vary through time and under different situations. A performance of an employee is usually very good and even excellent when they deal with subjects close to their interests, as they feel motivated. As expected, a good performance makes a positive impression to the costumer. On the other hand, if an employee does not feel motivated or is not satisfied with their tasks, their reaction towards a situation is expected to be negative and the impression left on the customer will be negative, as well. As a result, the impression formed by the customer concerning the company is partially affected by the customer’s opinion for the employee. Thus, examining the
relationship between employees’ personality traits and customer’s perceptions of the service provided is very important. There is a correlation between employee’s behavior on
performing a certain task and costumers’ judgment of this behavior- a positive approach of the employee towards performing a specific task will be perceived positively by the costumer whereas a negative approach will be perceived negatively (Al-Mutawa1 & Ibrahim, 2013).
Researchers have concluded that some personality traits have a more effective impact on the job performance than others. Throughout time different approaches of measuring those traits existed. Thurstone (1934) measured sixty traits of measuring personality whereas Donald Fiske analyzed a set of twenty two variables. Finally, in 1949 the Five Factor Model was developed by Cattell (Goldberg, 1993). The FFM measures the following personality dimensions: Extraversion, Emotional Stability, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience. In practice, the Big Five can be used to some degree for personnel selection. Researchers found a positive relationship between personality variables and job performance and as a result these studies succeeded in raising the status of personality tests for employee selection (Hurtz & Donovan, 2000).
There are many studies that examine the relationship between employee personality and employee performance, concluding that specific personality traits affect productivity
8 (Mount, Ilies, & Johnson, 1998). Nonetheless, most of them fail to use the most
comprehensive (NEO-PI R) or frequently used (BFI) Big Five measures (Noftle & Shaver, 2006). Moreover, there is little research which examines thoroughly the relationship between employee personality and performance specifically in the service sector (Lin, Chiu, & Hsieh, 2001).The necessity of understanding how employee personality affects employee
performance, and eventually Service Quality, is of vital importance as there is a rapid development in the field of professions concerning interpersonal interactions, like service oriented professions. Employee performance is vital for the measurement of service quality.
According to the aforementioned, Service Quality is the evaluation of the costumer between what they expect from the employee and what they actual receive. Consequently, a good job performance will lead to a satisfied customer and this in turn will achieve higher levels of Service Quality. Albert and Zemke (1985) state that two thirds of the workforce in United States is operating in the service field (Mount, Barrick, & Stewart, 1998). In addition, Jiang and Rosenbloom (2005) state that industrialized companies turn their economies from product providers to service providers. According to Porter (1998), service sector in United States accounts over 75% on the increase during the last decades, making it one of the faster growing sectors.
Furthermore, in most of the surveys job requirements were evaluated by employees’ supervisors or employees themselves and they were not based on customers’ expectations (Lin et al., 2001). The importance of measuring employees’ performance based on customer perspective is highlighted in Gelade and Young’s (2005) study in which they state that based on the service profit chain, there is a powerful relationship between employees’ performance and satisfied customers (Gelade & Young, 2005). Based on Homburg, Wieseke and Hoyer
9 (2009) customer satisfaction is the outcome from the comparison between what costumers expect from the employee and what the employee actually offers.
Effective employee performance leads to customer satisfaction and correspondingly customer satisfaction leads to profit (Heskett, 1994), customer loyalty and trust for the company (Eskildsen, 2004). Moreover, effective employees’ performance has impact on customers’ trust and loyalty. Measuring employee performance based on the customer
satisfaction can also allow companies to identify service dimensions that transcend or need to improve. It helps the employees to acquaint their roles in the organization’s services and finally, by improving the satisfaction to provide better services and become more successful and competitive (Lin et al., 2009).
The overall contribution of the present study is to examine the relationship between employee personality traits like Conscientiousness, Openness to Experience, Neuroticism, Extraversion and Agreeableness and Job Performance for jobs which belong in the service sector and more specifically front line employees, whose jobs are characterized by vivid interaction between the service provider and the costumer, such as waiters and receptionists.
Therefore, the focus of this paper aims to address the relationship between the “Big Five Personality Dimensions” and employees “Performance” in the service sector; for the purpose of the research there is collected evidence from The Netherlands.
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Chapter 1 - Literature review
In this part an overview of the most important concepts, definitions and theories regarding this research will be presented.
1.1.Service Quality
Before we move on to define the concept of Service Quality, it is important to say few things about service itself. According to Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985), has to do with the production, distribution and selling of intangible commodities. In order to better and further comprehend the essence of services, we need to define what intangible products are. It means that they cannot be stored, smelled, seen or used for more than one time with the same
features.
After having defined the concept of services, we can move on with the definition of service quality. There are a number of definitions about service quality. In this paper, service quality will be defined according to Parasuraman et al.’s (1985) study, as it is the most dominant one. Service quality is defined as “a global judgment or attitude relating to the superiority of the service” (Parasuraman et al., 1985). The authors further explain it as the processes by which the customers evaluate what they receive from the service and how they receive it. Customer satisfaction depends on the gap between what he expects from the service provider and what he actually receives (Jain & Gupta, 2004).
Service Quality is the target appraisal of the costumer’s perception of service assets such as interaction quality, physical environment quality and outcome quality (Brady & Cronin, 2001). This evaluation is performing based on specific Service Quality dimensions or domains (Al-Mutawal & Ibrahim, 2013).
12 In products, as well as in the service sector, quality can be viewed as “a strategic tool for attaining operational efficiency and improved business performance” (Jain & Gupta, 2004, p. 26). The inherent characteristics of the service products make it difficult for service to be measured. Three of these characteristics are intangibility, heterogeneity and inseparability. Intangibility makes it difficult for the firms to understand how customers evaluate the quality they provide because the services are translated into performances, thus it is difficult or even impossible to be tested or inventoried. Due to the heterogeneity, services’ quality varies for every producer, customer and even for a different period of time. As a final point, due to the inseparability of production and consumption of many services, the firm has little managerial control over the quality of services (Parasuraman et al., 1985).
There are many theories concerning Service Quality; hence a variety of different evaluation ways of Service quality exists. Sasser, Oslen and Wyckoff (1978) proposed a three-dimensional view of service performance, consisted of levels of material, facilities and personnel. A three- dimensional view of service quality was also proposed by Lehtinen and Lehtinen (1982), which is composed by “interaction” that included the relationship between customers and service providers and also the interaction between customers; “corporate” which included the firm’s image and reputation; and, at last, “physical” quality, which
included physical aspects of service. Later on, Gronroos (1984) introduced a customer view of quality which is two –dimensional composed by “output” and “process” (Caruana, 1999).
However, over time and over many different definitions of service quality, different types of measurement were developed. “SERVQUAL” was proposed as a Service Quality measurement scale based on the definition of service quality as “a global judgment, or
attitude, relating to the superiority of the service” (Jain & Gupta, 2004, p.26). “SERVQUAL” measures what the costumer expects from the employee compared to what the employee actual offers (Tan & Kek, 2004). More specifically, it measures the five dimensions of service
13 quality; Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, Empathy and Tangibles (Buttle, 1996). In table 1 the definition of each one of the five dimensions of service quality is presented.
Table 1: Service’s Quality Dimensions
Reliability The capability of the individual to perform the promised service reliably and precisely.
Assurance Employees’ acknowledgment and secure of their ability to transmit trust and confidence.
Tangibles “The appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel and communication materials” (Buttle, 1996).
Empathy Caring and paying attention to the needs of each customer separately.
Responsiveness Being willing to help the costumers and being ready to serve them.
The Tangibility dimension of service quality is exempted from Service Quality in our research; since the employees of the companies were the questionnaires were distributed do not have direct effect on the tangibility dimension of Service Quality.
To sum up, by reviewing previous research, it has been concluded that Service Quality is more difficult to be measured than Product Quality. Service Quality measures the gap between what the costumer expects and what he receives. Finally, Service Quality evaluation does not depend only on the outcome of the service but also includes the process of the service (Parasuraman et al., 1985).
14 In practice, measuring Service quality can be proven very important because satisfied customers not only stay loyal to the company but can also attract other customers by
recommending the company. Thus, the company reduces the costs that are associated with attracting new customers or keeping the current ones (Schneider, White, & Paul, 1998).
1.2. Big Five Personality Traits:
Before Mischel (1968) proved the existence of personalities, there was no need to use personality’s measures in personnel selection (Goldberg, 1993). However, during the 1970s, the belief for the importance of personality was altered and the need for measuring specific characteristics became relevant again (Barrick & Mount, 1991). Pervin (1993) defined personality as “those characteristics of the person that account for consistent patterns of behavior”. Throughout the years different theories of personality have been developed in an attempt to explore the structure and evolution of human behavior. Some of them are the cognitive theory, the trait theory, the social cognitive theory and the learning theory (Lin et al., 2001). Since the interest of this study is to understand the relationship between
employee’s personality and customer’s satisfaction, we will only concentrate on the trait theory. Trait theory argues that a person can be characterized from a perspective of constant motives, thoughts, feelings and actions. In addition, traits can be measured quantitatively and show a level of cross-situational consistency (McCrae & Costa, 1999).
Many different opinions existed about the number of personality traits. Cattell (1948) developed a theory that consisted of sixteen primary factors and eight second-order factors, while Hogan (1995) argued that there are only six factors. However, most of the studies tend to come to an agreement about the Five Personality Dimensions theory known as the “Big Five” or “Five Factor Model” (FFM) which are: Extraversion, Emotional Stability,
15 Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience (Barrick & Mount, 1991). In Table 2 the definitions of the big five personality traits dimensions are presented.
Table 2: Big Five Personality Traits Dimensions
Extraversion An extraverted person is sociable, positive, talkative, and active.
Emotional Stability People who are emotionally stable are happy, satisfied, calm and untroubled
Agreeableness People who are characterized as agreeable are good-natured, kind, considerate, friendly and cooperating. Conscientiousness Conscious people are described as responsible,
faithfulness and organized.
Openness to experience The last dimension is difficult to identify. It is also known as intellect or intellectene. People described as intellect are cultured, imaginative, original, intelligent and artistically sensitive.
The Big Five-Personality Traits model is specifically chosen because it has succeeded widespread acceptance as a significant way of describing the structure of personality traits. These traits reflect sustained, emotional, interpersonal, experiential and motivational styles that explain behavior in different situations. There are two Five Factors Model measures developed; the Neo Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) by McCrae and Costa (1987) and the other based on Lexical model and influenced by the studies of Norman (1967), Peabody, Goldbeirg (1993), John (1990), and Wiggins and Pincus (1992). There are some similarities
16 between the models such as the number of dimensions, which are five in both models ,the fourth factor “Emotional Stability and Neuroticism” which is basically the same but it is mentioned with the opposite meaning and finally the meaning of the third factor
“Conscientiousness” that is not identical but similar.
Nonetheless, there are also two basic differences between the two models. First of all, the first and second factors interchange in such a way that warmth seems as a characteristic of
Extraversion in NEO-PI, whereas in the Lexical model it seems as a characteristic of
Agreeableness. Furthermore, the fifth Factor is mentioned as Openness to Experience in the NEO-PI, while as Intellect or Imagination on the Lexical model (Goldbeirg, 1993).
Despite the differences between the two methods, the study of Schmitt et al. (2007) provides evidence that both the Big Five and the NEO-PI, “demonstrate reasonable cross-cultural agreement” especially regarding factors of sampling, standardization and acquiescence. Cultures which had high-scores at BFI also had high scores at NEO-PI (Schmitt et al., 2007).
In practice, Personality traits measurement can be used for the procedure of personnel selection so that the firms, reflecting their needs, can choose the right candidate for a position based on the answers of candidates at the personality test (Hurtz & Donovan, 2000). For example, based on the results of Lin et al.’s (2001) study, which claims that openness has a positive relationship with assurance, extraversion with responsiveness and agreeableness with both empathy and assurance, a company should choose as a suitable employee in the service sector a person who scores high at Agreeableness, Extraversion and Openness to Experience (Barrick, Mount, & Judge, 2001).
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1.3.Relationship between Big Five Personality Traits and Service Quality
Liao & Chuang (2004) support that there will be a positive relationship between each one of employee’s Big Five Personality traits, namely openness to Experience, Consciousness, Agreeableness, Extraversion and Emotional Stability and Service Performance. They actually state that two of the personality traits, the Conscientiousness and Emotional Stability, have a positive relationship with performance in all jobs and Extraversion and Agreeableness have a positive relationship in professions in which interaction with other people plays a significant part of the job, like jobs in the service sector (Barrick & Mount, 1991). From this theory, it is understood that the Service Performance is related to the employee’s Big Five Personality traits. However, this is evidence which relies mostly from one research and the relationship might be weak, as there are many other factors except personality that affect performance, such as job satisfaction, mental ability and career success. The studies concerning personality are rather useful as a starting point for further research (Barrick & Mount, 1993; Judge & Mount, 2002; Judge, Higgins, Thoresen, & Barrick, 1999). This generates the need to re-examine this relationship, in order to confirm whether can be valid or not.
Most meta-analysis concluded that two of the FFM benefit performance in all kind of jobs. Those are Conscientiousness and Emotional Stability. On the other hand, the other three FFM traits are linked to performance in professions where interaction with other people is an important part of the job (Barrick et al., 2001). Especially, Emotional Stability and
Agreeableness are strongly related to performance for jobs where teamwork is an essential part of the job (Mount et al., 1998).
Before we move on, it is important to argue that for each one of the first four hypotheses there is going to be a key hypothesis and then five sub-hypothesis, where each sub-hypothesis is linked with a related construct of the Big Five Personality traits. As it was mentioned before
18 the tangibility dimension of service quality is exempted from Service Quality since the
employees of the companies do not have direct effect on the tangibility dimension of Service Quality.
More explicitly, Conscientiousness is expected to have a positive relationship with Job Performance (Barrick & Mount, 1991) because conscientious people are dependable, reliable, accurate, responsible and punctual. Those Personality Traits characterize individuals, with the goal of motivating individuals to do what is expected from them in order to complete their tasks. As a result, Personality Traits are going to be positively linked to effective
performance. People scoring low at conscientiousness are mostly careless, anxious, irresponsible and non-dependable and are usually not very productive. Thus,
Conscientiousness was found to have a positive correlation with reliability dimension of service quality (Lin et al., 2001). Taking into account the results of previous studies the following hypotheses can be derived:
Hypothesis 1: Conscientiousness will be positively related to Service Quality.
Hypothesis 1a: There is a positive relationship between Empathy and Conscientiousness.
Hypothesis 1b: There is a positive relationship between Reliability and Conscientiousness.
Hypothesis 1c: There is a positive relationship between Responsiveness and Conscientiousness.
Hypothesis 1d: There is a positive relationship between Assurance and Conscientiousness.
Individuals who score low in Agreeableness are usually not flexible, cooperative, caring and tend to disagree with their colleagues. Those characteristics are related with low rates of performance. People who score high in Agreeableness are forgiving, helpful, generous, and gentle. Their actions are directed toward gaining acceptance of other people and make them better at helping and serving customers (Thoresen et al., 2004; Liao &
19 Chuang, 2004; Barick et al., 2001; Judge et al., 2002). Agreeableness thereby will show a positive correlation with the empathy dimension of service quality (Lin et al., 2001).
According on Salgado’s (1997) study results, agreeableness has a positive relationship with training proficiency; thus, we can consider that Agreeableness correlates with empathy. That is because the employees who score high they achieve training proficiency and create feelings of trust and confidence to the customers. Taking into account the results of previous studies the following hypotheses can be derived:
Hypothesis 2: There is a positive relationship between Agreeableness and Service Quality.
Hypothesis 2a: There is a positive relationship between Empathy and Agreeableness.
Hypothesis 2b: There is a positive relationship between Reliability and Agreeableness.
Hypothesis 2c: There is a positive relationship between Responsiveness and Agreeableness.
Hypothesis 2d: There is a positive relationship between Assurance and Agreeableness.
Individuals characterized by high levels of Extraversion are sociable, confident, talkative, ambitious, outgoing, emotional active. Those traits activate people’s energy levels and activity, and ultimately lead to effective performance. Barrick and Mount (1999) state that Extraversion is a significant predictor of Job Performance that involves interaction between the customer and the employees. Finally, Lin et al. (2001) resulted in their study that Extraversion has a positive relationship with responsiveness dimension of service quality. Taking into account the results of previous studies the following hypotheses can be derived:
Hypothesis 3: There is a positive relationship between Extraversion and Service Quality.
Hypothesis 3a: There is a positive relationship between Empathy and Extraversion.
20 Hypothesis 3c: There is a positive relationship between Responsiveness and Extraversion.
Hypothesis 3d: There is a positive relationship between Assurance and Extraversion.
People who are characterized as Neurotic tend to worry more, get easier depressed and anxious, and tend to be insecure and hostile. Their incapability to properly control their emotions results in losing their task attention. However, Emotional Stable individuals, who are the exact opposite of those characterized as Neurotic, tend to be more relaxed. As a result, their stress tolerance enables them to build trust and credibility with the clients and eventually makes them benefit their performance. Taking into account the results of previous studies the following hypotheses can be derived:
Hypothesis 4: There is a positive relationship between Emotional Stability and Service Quality.
Hypothesis 4a: There is a positive relationship between Empathy and Emotional Stability.
Hypothesis 4b: There is a positive relationship between Reliability and Emotional Stability.
Hypothesis 4c: There is a positive relationship between Responsiveness and Emotional Stability.
Hypothesis 4d: There is a positive relationship between Assurance and Emotional Stability.
People with high scores in Openness to Experience are creative, curious, imaginative and intellectual. They also portray a more flexible way of thinking. Those traits result in willingness in engaging with the learning experience, which results in training improvement and better performance. Generally, employees who show high levels of Openness to
21 Therefore, Openness to Experience tends to be positively correlated with Assurance (Lin et al., 2001). Taking into account the results of previous studies the following hypotheses can be derived:
Hypothesis 5: There is a positive relationship between Openness to Experience and Service Quality.
Hypothesis 5a: There is a positive relationship between Empathy and Openness to Experience.
Hypothesis 5b: There is a positive relationship between Reliability and Openness to Experience.
Hypothesis 5c: There is a positive relationship between Responsiveness and Openness to Experience.
Hypothesis 5d: There is a positive relationship between Assurances and Openness to Experience.
In conclusion, we expect a positive relationship between the Big Five Personality traits, namely Contentiousness, Agreeableness, Emotional stability, Extraversion, Openness to Experience and Service quality. Lin et al. (2001) proved that Agreeableness is a valid
predictor of Empathy and Assurance, while Openness to Experience had a positive relationship with Assurance; it was also proven that Conscientiousness correlated with Reliability and Extraversion had a positive relationship with Responsiveness.
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Chapter 2 - Research Methodology
2.1. Sample description
In order to prove the relationship between Employees Big Five Personality Traits and Service Quality, a sample of employees and customers has been selected. The employees were asked to fill in the Big Five Personality Trait questionnaire. With this method a unique profile will be created for each employee. Based on the aforementioned theory of service quality and its definition, service quality can be explained as the processes through which the customers evaluate what they receive from the service and how they receive it (Parasuraman et al., 1985). This is the reason why the questionnaires should be filled out also by the costumers.
The employees who were selected randomly to answer the questionnaires where those who had direct interaction with the costumers, like waiters and receptionists, since we were interested in measuring the service quality from the perspective of the costumer and also what change the personality of employees make at the outcome. After completing their
questionnaire, the employees who agreed to participate were asked to randomly choose three customers that they served. The costumers were asked to fill the questionnaire right after they have been served. In order to ensure the correspondence between the two questionnaires, each set of questionnaires (one employee, three customers) included a letter referring to the
employee (i.e. A) and the same letter followed by subsequent numbers referring to the customers (i.e. A1, A2, A3).
A number of totally 432 questionnaires were given to three different types of companies that belong to the service sector in The Netherlands, which includes restaurants, hotels, and cafeterias. The hotels that were included in the survey were four and five stars
23 hotels based on their rating reviews in the internet (in websites like booking.com, etc.). The cafes and restaurants that participated were also rated between four and five stars; the rating was also based on credible websites, like iens.com and tripadvisor.com. A key fact that should be noted is that although the restaurants and hotels that agreed to participate where located in different areas of Amsterdam, most of the cooperative cafes where located near to the
universities. The location of the cafes had an effect on the results, since the majority of the participants were students, as we will see further down in the results chapter. In total the questionnaires were distributed at 4 hotels, 6 cafes and 5 restaurants, where 108
questionnaires were addressed to the employees and 400 to the costumers. The questionnaire was in English although the majority of respondents had Dutch as a primary language.
The questionnaire was distributed to 108 employees and 400 costumers. All the employees (108) answered the questionnaires regarding the Big Five Personality traits. Regarding the costumers, not all of them were cooperating, however the purpose of the study to collect responses from 3 costumers for each employee, in order the result to be objective, was achieved. As a consequence, at the end 324 costumers answered the questionnaire (response rate stood at 81%). After the control for outliers, it was found that the results of the analysis were influenced significantly by deviant responses, so outliers were excluded from the sample leaving as final sample (N) 88 employees and 264 costumers’ responses (3 costumers per employee)
2.2. Procedure
The contact with the companies was made through e-mails. Invitation e-mails were sent to several companies that belong in these three types of sectors of service field, asking for permission to spread the questionnaires to some of their employees and customers and
24 informing them about the amount of time needed to fill in the questionnaires. Furthermore, it was mentioned that the survey was conducted by a student of the University of Amsterdam and also contained information about the content of the research. Twenty five companies were initially approached, and in the end fifteen agreed to participate in the research (4 hotels, 6 cafes and 5 restaurants). Both the employees and the customers were ensured that the answers would be kept confidential and anonymous. The employees were further informed that their supervisors would not have access to their answers. Finally, the customers were asked to hand in the questionnaires directly to the author in order to avoid the likelihood that the costumer would change her/his answers to please the employee.
2.3.Description of Measures
There were two types of questionnaires used (one for employees and one for customers), due to the unique construct of the conceptual model figure 1. The employee questionnaire
consisted of sixty items measuring employee personality. The study of personality was held through a 60-item NEO- FFI Questionnaire. The second questionnaire addressed to costumers measured Service Quality through a thirty- six item “Servqual” questionnaire. Demographic variables like age and gender were also considered.
Service Quality
The study of Service Quality is based on the answers of a thirty- six item “SERVQUAL” questionnaire (Parasuraman et al., 1988). “SERVQUAL” was proposed as a Service Quality measurement scale based on the definition of Service Quality as “a global judgment, or attitude, relating to the superiority of the service” (Jain & Gupta, 2004, p.26). It measures what the costumer expects from the employee compared to what the employee actually offers (Tan & Kek, 2004). The respondents were asked to answer dimensions of Reliability,
25 as “strongly disagree” or as “strongly agree” (Buttle, 1996). An example item is “When excellent companies promise to do something by a certain time, they do it” for Reliability, “Employees in the company give you prompt service” for Responsiveness, “Customers of excellent companies will feel safe in transactions” for Assurance, and “Company gives you individual attention” for Empathy. Although some of the questions are referring to the company, we expect that the answers of the customers to be linked to the specific employee who served them. As it was mentioned before, the impression formed by the customer concerning the company is partially affected by the customer’s expectation about the employee performance (Al-Mutawa1 & Ibrahim, 2013).
The next step is to calculate the customer’s satisfaction based on expectations and experience. Since we have 3 costumers for each employee first we calculate the average of the responses of those 3 customers in order to have one response for each one of the employees. Then, the score of the eighteen expectations and eighteen perception questions is obtained. The Gap Score (GS) of each of the statement is calculated per employee (Gap Score= Perception - Expectation). Then, the Average Gap Score of each dimension is estimated. Firstly, we add the Gap Score of each of the statements that belongs to one dimension; for example, Gap Score Reliability (GSR) = GS1 + GS2+ GS3 +GS4 + GS5. After adding them, we divide the sum by the number of the statements that belong to each dimension (Average GSR= GSR/5) and the result is the Average Gap Score of each dimension. The results are the unweighted measure of the Service Quality.
Weighting depends on how the costumers distribute hundred points to the four SERVQUAL dimensions and in order to obtain that information four more questions were added to those Servqual questionnaires. Before those four questions were addressed a small description was made in order to help the participants to answer the questions - “Listed below are the four sets of features pertaining to hotels and the services they offer. We would like to
26 know how much each of these sets of features is important to the customer. Please allocate 100 points among the four sets of features according to how important it is to you. Make sure the points add up to 100”. Then the four questions were addressed, i.e. “1.The hotel's ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately.”, “2. The hotel willingness to help customers and provide prompt service.”, “3.The knowledge and courtesy of the hotel's employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence.” and “4. The caring individual attention that the hotel provides its customers.”
After collecting a sample of ten questionnaires of this type, a feedback asked from the participants about the clarity of the questions. All of them referred that they found the specific four questions quite confusing and time-consuming. So, all of the above four questions were removed in order to ensure the reliability of the research. As a result, the research continued with the unweighted Servqual Score.
Big Five Personality Dimensions
Based on Barrick and Mount’s (1991) study there are Five Personality Dimensions known as “Five Factor Model” (FFM) which are: Extraversion, Emotional Stability, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience. The questionnaire consists of a sixty-item NEO-FFI Questionnaire with a five point-scale where one represents “strongly disagree” and five represents “strongly agree”. Examples of the included items are “I am not a very
methodical person” for Conscientiousness, “I often try new and foreign cuisine” for Openness to Experience, “I often feel tense and jittery” for Neuroticism, “I generally try to be thoughtful and considerate” for Agreeableness and finally “I like to have a lot of people around me” for Extraversion. For each one of the dimensions there were reversed questioners as well. Examples of the reversed items are for Conscientiousness “I am not a very methodical person”, for Openness to Experience “ Poetry has little or no effect on me” , for
27 Agreeableness “Some people think of me as cold and calculating”, for Extraversion “I usually prefer to do things alone” and for Neuroticism “I am not a worrier”. For the measurement the responses of those questions were re- coded, so that the high “scores” of the item to represent high levels of the attitude.
Control Variables
After careful revision of the literature in the field (Al-Mutawa1 & Ibrahim, 2013; Lin et al., 2001) the variables of age, gender, and employee status in the company (whether they are full time or part time employees) were used as control variables in order to examine for spurious effects. Age was measured in years. Gender and employee status in the company was
measured with two answer categories, male and female and part time and full time, respectively. Gender and employee status in the company were recoded into a dummy variable with men and part time status as the reference group, respectively.
28
Chapter 3 - Results
In this chapter the results of the research will be analyzed and explained. First of all, a Reliability analysis is provided in order to test the reliability of the dimensional scales. Then the Correlation table is presented and finally, a hierarchical linear regression analysis is used in order to test the hypotheses suggested in the theoretical framework.
3.1. Descriptive Statistics
For the purpose of the study there were three categorical variables used– age (of employees and costumers), gender (of employees and costumers), employees tenure in the company and employees work and status (if they are full time employees or part time). The survey for employees was completed by 88 people. In terms of the age of the employee responders 26 (29%) are between 19-29 years old, 40(46%) are between 30-39 years old, 17 (19%) are between 40-49 years old and 5 (6%) employees are 50 years old and up.
The proportion between males and females is 35 (40%) males and 53 (60%) females. The majority of the responders 86 (98%) are working part time and 2 (2%) full time. Concerning the tenure in the company 36 (41%) employees are working 1-5 years in the company, 25 (28%) between 6-10, 18 (19%) employees between 11-15 years, 5 (6%) between 16-20 years and finally 4 (6%) between 21-27 years.
Concerning the costumers’ questionnaire, it was completed by 264 people in total. The proportion between males and females is 45 (52%) males and 43 (48%) females. In terms of the age of the costumers 3 (3%) are between 12-19 years old, 23 (26%) are between 20-29 years old, 29 (33%) are between 30-39 years old, 23 (26%) are between 40-49 years old, 9 (10%) are between 50-59 years old and finally 1 (2%) are older than 60.
3.2. Correlation-Descriptive- Reliability
A Reliability analysis was held for testing the one dimensional scales by focusing on
Cronbach’s alpha (a) (Field, 2009). The reliability analysis aims to point the items that can be deleted so that the reliability of the scale can be increased (Field, 2009). Cronbach’s alpha is a measure of internal consistency that measures the degree of the relationship between the items
29 of the group. A “high” value of alpha is usually proof that the item measures a specific
construct (Field, 2009). The Pearsons’ correlation was used in order to settle the relationship between the variables (Field, 2009).
For the purpose of the study, nine variables (Responsiveness, Reliability, Empathy, Assurance, Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience, Extraversion and Agreeableness) were calculated using various questions. The overall dependent variable “service quality” showed an Alpha of 0.95. The four dimensions of service quality were also tested for reliability. Responsiveness showed an Alpha of 0.82, and Reliability of 0.91, Empathy an Alpha of 0.88 and Assurance of 0.87. These coefficients are accepted because they are higher than the minimum acceptable level proposed by Cortina (0.70) (1993).
Due to the low levels of Cronbach’s Alpha that the five dimensions of Personality showed, some of the questions that in the Column “Chronbach’s Alpha if item deleted” indicated a higher Cronbach’s Alpha if items were deleted. So, from Neuroticism in total 2 items were deleted, from Conscientiousness 4 items, from Extraversion 1 item and from Openness to Experience 3 items. All the deleted items are presented below in the Table 8 in the Appendix chapter. From the Big Five Personality traits Neuroticism showed an Alpha of 0.48 and Extraversion an Alpha of 0.52, while Agreeableness showed an Alpha of 0.65. The Cronbach’s Alpha for Conscientiousness and Openness to experience are 0.45 and 0.52, respectively. Although the coefficients are lower than the minimum acceptable level, we generally accept them, because they are justified from Kline (1999) statement. Even though, Cortina (1993) states that the cut-off point is to have an Alpha ≥ 0.70, Kline (1999) supports that a value lower than 0.70 is possible, especially in cases of psychological constructs, due to the diversity of those constructs.
30 The means, standard deviations and correlations of the variables used for the study are presented in Table 3.In Table 3, it can be seen that Conscientiousness is related significantly to Reliability (r= .26, p< .05). The positive relationship between conscientiousness and reliability shows that customers score higher levels of service quality when they interact with employees who are responsible. Furthermore Gender correlates negatively with Assurance (r= -. 222, p< .05). This means that Gender could have spurious effect on the model; however it would be further examined in the Regression Analysis.
Table 3: Descriptives, Reliability and Correlations
N M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Age 88 33.5 5 7.84 1 Gendera 88 1.60 0.49 ,063 1 Part/Full time Employeeb 88 8.51 5.97 ,766** ,019 1 Neurotisism 88 2.94 .38 -,157 -,044 -,005 1 Extraversion 88 3.18 .38 ,008 -,120 ,014 ,037 1 Openness to Experience 88 3.06 .41 ,063 -,142 ,003 -,351** ,219* 1 Agreeableness 88 3.11 .43 -,065 ,103 ,000 -,179 -,113 -,197 1 Conscientiousn ess 88 3.25 .35 -,028 -,200 -,025 ,095 ,430** ,215* -,314** 1 Reliability 88 -1.07 .49 -,082 -,155 -,106 -,090 ,098 ,111 ,041 ,260* 1 Responsiveness 88 -1.25 .57 -,094 -,040 -,196 -,103 ,017 ,088 ,059 ,115 ,705** 1 Assurance 88 -1.22 .62 -,081 -,222* -,107 -,060 ,006 -,066 ,106 ,109 ,732** ,754** 1 Empathy 88 - .93 .61 -,085 -,157 -,051 -,112 ,007 -,107 ,140 ,082 ,589** ,517** ,795** 1
*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed) **Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)
a
Gender was coded 0 (male) and 1 (female)
b
31 The aim of this research is to check the relationship between the five personality dimensions (Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness to Experience and Agreeableness) and the four dimensions of the Service Quality (Responsiveness, Reliability, Empathy and Assurance). For this reason, the Big Five Personality traits were used as independent variable for the regression analysis. Age, gender of the employee and employee status were used as control variables and the four dimensions of service quality
Responsiveness, Reliability, Assurance and Empathy were used as depended. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to test the different hypothesis of the study. All the
variables were entered stepwise, in the first step the independent variables were entered and in the second step the control variables were added.
3.2. Regression Results for Empathy Dimension of Service Quality
The model’s R2 (coefficient of determination) as it appears in Table 4 regarding the relationship between Empathy and the Five Personality Traits is very low (about .07). Although Openness to Experience, Extraversion, Conscientiousness and Agreeableness do not show any statistical relationship with customers’ evaluation of the Empathy, the dimension of quality Neuroticism seems to correlate negatively with the customers evaluation of Empathy (r= - .13, p< .1) showing a R2 of .10.
Based on the outcome of the personality traits in relation with Empathy we can conclude that the results fail to confirm the hypotheses 1a, 2a, 3a, and 5a. However, the results show that there is a significant positive relationship between employees who score high in Emotional Stability and customers’ evaluation of Empathy (r= .13, p<.05). Thus, the hypothesis 4a “There is a positive relationship between Empathy and Emotional Stability”, was accepted.
32 Table 4: Empathy Dimension of Service Quality
Model 1 Model 2
Variable b SE b Beta B SE b Beta
(Constant) -.92 .06 -.29 .40 Neurotisism -.11 .07 -.18 -.13* .07 -.20 Extraversion -.00 .07 -.01 -.00 .07 -.00 Openness to Experience -.10 .07 -.17 -.12 .07 -.20 Agreeableness .06 .07 .10 .06 .07 .09 Conscientiousness .11 .07 .18 .08 .07 .14 Age (years) -.01 .01 -.12 Gendera -.21 .14 -.16 Employee statusb .00 .01 .05 R2 .07 .10 Adjusted R2 .01 .01 F change 1.2 1.0 * p < .1 ** p < .05 *** p < .001 a
Gender was coded 0 (female) and 1 (male) b
Employee Status was coded 0 (full time) and 1 (part time) c
33
3.3. Regression Results for Reliability Dimension of Service Quality
The results from the Table 5 show that the Openness to Experience, Neuroticism, Extraversion and Agreeableness do not show any statistical relationship with customers’ evaluation of Reliability dimension of quality service. Nonetheless, as it appears in Table 5 Conscientiousness significantly and positively related with the Reliability (Model 1: r= .31, p< .05) with R 2 (.09) and (Model 2: r= .29, p< .05) with R2 (.11).
Based on the outcome of the personality traits in relation with reliability we can conclude that the results fail to confirm hypothesis 1b, hypothesis 2b, hypothesis 4b, and hypothesis 5b, but confirm hypothesis 3b.The results indicate that there is a positive and significant relationship between employees who score high in Conscientiousness and customers’ evaluation of Reliability.
34 Table 5: Reliability Dimension of Service Quality
Model 1 Model 2
Variable b SE b Beta B SE b Beta
(Constant) -1.085 .05 -.84 .32 Neurotisism -.03 .06 -.07 -.04 .06 -.07 Extraversion -.01 .05 -.02 -.01 .06 -.02 Openness to Experience .02 .06 .05 .02 .06 .04 Agreeableness .07 .05 .14 .07 .06 .14 Conscientiousness .15 .06 .31** .14 .06 .29** Age (years) .00 .01 .00 Gendera -.11 .11 -.10 Employee statusb -.00 .01 -.09 R2 .09 .11 Adjusted R2 .04 .03 F change 1.8 .02 * p < .1 ** p < .05 *** p < .001 a
Gender was coded 0 (female) and 1 (male) b
Employee Status was coded 0 (full time) and 1 (part time) c
35
3.2.Regression Results for the Responsiveness Dimension of Service Quality
The model’s R2 (coefficient of determination) as it appears in Table 6 concerning the
relationship between Responsiveness and the Five Personality Traits is very low (about .04). Furthermore, Table 6 does not show an important statistical relationship between the control variables and customers evaluation of the Responsiveness dimension of quality. Based on the outcome of the personality traits in relation with Responsiveness we can conclude that the hypothesis 1c, hypothesis 2c, hypothesis 3c, hypothesis 4c, and hypothesis 5c were rejected.
36 Table 6: Responsiveness Dimension of Service Quality
Model 1 Model 2
Variable b SE b Beta b SE b Beta
(Constant) -1.25 .06 -1.28 .37 Neurotisism -.07 .07 -.11 -.05 .07 -.10 Extraversion -.02 .06 -.04 -.02 .06 -.03 Openness to Experienc .03 .07 .06 .03 .07 .06 Agreeableness .05 .06 .09 .05 .06 .10 Conscientiousness .09 .07 .16 .08 .07 .15 Age (years) .00 .01 .11 Gendera -.00 .13 -.00 Employee statusb -.02 .01 -.27 R2 .04 .08 Adjusted R2 -.01 -.00 F change .78 1.20 * p < .1 ** p < .05 *** p < .001 a
Gender was coded 0 (female) and 1 (male) b
Employee Status was coded 0 (full time) and 1 (part time) c
37
3.3. Regression Results for the Assurance Dimension of Service Quality
The model’s R2 (coefficient of determination) as it appears in Table 7 concerning the relationship between Assurance and the Five Personality Traits is very low (about .04). But there is a significant statistical relationship between the Gender of the employee and
Assurance (r= - .28, p<.05). The results state that the negative relationship between Gender and Assurance shows that customers score higher levels of service quality when they are interacting with female employees. Based on the outcome of the personality traits in relation with assurance we can conclude that the hypothesis 1d, hypothesis 2d, hypothesis 3d,
38 Table 7: Assurance Dimension of Service Quality
Model 1 Model 2
Variable b SE b Beta b SE b Beta
(Constant) -1.2 .06 -.70 .40 Neurotisism -.09 .07 -.14 -.09 .07 -.14 Extraversion -.02 .07 -.04 -.02 .07 -.03 Openness to Experience -.06 .07 -.11 -.08 .07 -.13 Agreeableness 0.5 .07 .09 .06 .07 .09 Conscientiousness .12 .07 .19 .09 .07 .15 Age (years) .00 .01 .01 Gendera -.28** .14 -.22 Employee statusb -.01 .01 -.11 R2 .04 .10 Adjusted R2 -.00 -.01 F change .85 1.6 * p < .1 ** p < .05 *** p < .001 a
Gender was coded 0 (female) and 1 (male) b
Employee Status was coded 0 (full time) and 1 (part time) c
39
Chapter 4 - Discussion
The theoretical goal of this paper is to empirically examine the relationship between employees’ personality and service quality. It must be said that the case of the employees’ personality in relation with the level of services given has become the center of many recent papers and of other types of research, such as o Al-Mutawa1 and Ibrahim (2013) and many others. In general terms, it is accepted from most of the researches (Liao & Chuang, 2004; Barrick et al., 2001; Mount et al., 1998) which indicate that there is evidence about the relationship between the personality and traits of the employee and his performance as provider of services for the organization that he works for. Actually, there seems to be the case of the various constructs and conditions of the personality that affect the service quality from different perspectives.
The results align with the results of Al-Mutawa1 and Ibrahim (2013) with the exception of the relationships between Emotional Stability and Empathy, and
Conscientiousness and Reliability. The general results indicate that there is no significant linkage between employees’ personality traits and costumers’ perception of service quality empirically. In contradiction to the general results, the Table 7 and Table 4 show a significant relationship between Conscientiousness and Reliability, and between Emotional Stability and Empathy. The positive relationship between Emotional Stability and Empathy shows that customers score higher levels of service quality when they interact with employees who are happy, satisfied, calm and untroubled. In addition, the positive and significant relationship between Conscientiousness and Reliability shows that customers score higher levels of service quality when they interact with employees who are responsible, faithfulness and organized. Employees who are characterized by high levels of Conscientiousness are goal- oriented and do what is expected from them in order to complete their tasks, leading in this way to effective performance. As a result, customers believe that such employees will
40 perform reliably and precisely the promised service. The results come in align with the study of Lin et al., (2001) where it is proved that conscientiousness is a significant predictor of job performance in jobs that involve interaction between the customers and employees.
A significant number of scholars have already studied how employees’ personality affects Service Quality (Barrick et al., 2001; Liao & Chuang, 2004; Mount et al., 1998). In particular, Emotional Stability and Agreeableness are strongly related to performance for jobs where teamwork is an essential part of the work, as well as a representative feature for the jobs in the service sector (Barrick et al., 2001). Lin et al.’s (2001) results show that that agreeableness is a valid predictor of empathy and assurance, openness to experience has a positive relationship with assurance, conscientiousness correlated with reliability and extraversion has a positive relationship with responsiveness.
The psychology literature states that personality traits have an impact on the employee’s performances. Researches like Mount & Barrick (1998), Hurtz & Donovan (2000), Lin et al. (2001) and Al-Mutawa1 & Ibrahim (2013) tested the linkage between personality traits and customers perception of Service Quality. The basic idea was that a linkage between personality traits of employees and customers’ perception of Service Quality exists. Only recently the results of Al-Mutawa1 & Ibrahim (2013) showed the opposite.
Different explanations exist justifying the absence of relationship between the personality traits represented by the big-five factors and customers’ perception of Service Quality. One possible explanation is that such a relationship does not exist and is a matter of chance if the results show or not a positive relationship. Even though, the results of the study contradict with the study of Lin et al. (2001), partially agree with the study of Al-Mutawa1 and Ibrahim (2013).
41 Thus, the assumption of Al-Mutawa1 and Ibrahim (2013) could be partially
applicable. They argue that the composition of the sample could be the reason for the different results. The service industry is dominated by students, having their first job and attending university at the same time. Therefore, in these circumstances, the turnover for employees is really high, the staff being inexperienced and has other job perspectives. It was also the case in our research study, where the majority of the employees- participants were students. Moreover, the most of the students decide to work in service sector, such as cafeterias and restaurants, in order to cover their costs of living and not to pursue it as a potential future career. This can mean that they would not express all the dimensions of their personality, because they would not have the ambitions to remain permanently in their current jobs.
Another explanation for the results in this sample is the fact that the Big Five Variables had low Cronbach’s Alpha, as can be seen in the Descriptive, Reliability, and Correlations table, which indicates a low reliability of the data. This can be interpreted by the fact that the employees did not have the appropriate time to answer the questions, because the questionnaires were handed in during their shifts.
42
4.1. Limitations
A number of limitations need to be taken into consideration when interpreting the results of the present study. A limitation that should be taken into account is the fact that I used a cross-sectional design, which implies that the respondents of the questionnaire were asked at a specific moment in time. One of the major problems of this type of research is that data is collected at one specific moment, thus not measuring the starting and finishing point of the effect of research variables, limits the internal validity.
Finally, it is possible the employees to deal with self – efficacy issues while filling the personality questionnaire. In this case the responses could be in question regarding their honesty and objectivity of their answers. In other words, the study can suffer from response-bias, due to the fact that the employees can overestimate their personality traits or they can give social acceptable answers.
Another limitation of this study is the use of questionnaires in collecting information from the respondents. Due to the fact that the method of questionnaire does not give the freedom to the responders to completely express their feelings and their opinion concerning the subject of the study. This, in turn, could hinder the researcher to examine in depth the real opinion and beliefs of the respondents.
43
4.2. Future research
A possible recommendation for future research is to conduct a longitudinal study. This study would be more appropriate for this type of analysis, because if longitudinal study would have been conducted, causal relations could have been determined. Moreover, if data would have been collected from various sources, such as managers or supervisors, the study would not have been based solely on self-report measures. As a result, the possibility of response-bias would be decreased.
Moreover, the variables could be tested in different kind of measures, for example personality could be tested based on other kind of questionnaires like NEO-PI or different research methods could be used, such as semi-structured interviews and/or observations of the personalities of employees. In this way, the reliability of the study would be ensured. Finally, by conducting a qualitative study design, such as semi-structured interviews, the researchers would have the possibility to examine in depth the attitudes and consequently the personality traits of employees, because they can build an empathic relationship with the respondents.
44
Chapter 5 - Conclusion
The purpose of the research was to explore the relationship between the important factors of personality traits, and service quality. However, the results of the study show that such a relationship does not necessarily exist. Although the results of the study did not show
significant relationship between all the Big Five Personality Traits and the four dimensions of Service Quality, a positive relationship was found between Conscientiousness and Reliability, and between Emotional Stability and Empathy. Based on this outcome, there are some implications created; one of the first things one needs to take into consideration is that the hiring processes and standards should change. The recruiter managers could give attention not only to the candidates who are responsible, faithfulness and organized, but also they can emphasize to the candidates who seem happy, satisfied and untroubled. Finally, the material of the technical tests, as well of the personality tests used during the employees’ selection process, should be redefined, re-studied and modified accordingly.
45
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