PERSONALITY AND PERFORMANCE IN A
CHINESE CONTEXT
Master thesis, Msc HRM, specialization Human Resource Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business October 20, 2008
FANG WANG
Student number: 1741829
Duindoornstraat 571, 9741PW, Groningen, The Netherlands
+ 31 (0)634563669
S1741829@rug.nl
Supervisor F. Walter
Human resource management & Organizational behavior Faculty of Economics and Business
University of Groningen
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERSONALITY AND PERFORMANCE IN A CHINESE CONTEXT
ABSTRACT
TABLE OF CONTENT
INTRODUCTION… … … . 4
CULTURAL MODEL OF HOFSTEDE… … … 8
Individualism/collectivism… … … 8 Power distance… … … ... 9 Masculinity/femininity… … … 9 Uncertainty avoidance… … … 10 Confucianism dynamism… … … 10 HYPOTHESES… … … .. 11 Conscientiousness… … … .. 11 Openness to experience… … … .. 14 Agreeableness… … … . 16 Extraversion… … … 19 Emotional stability… … … .. 21 METHOD… … … 23 Sample… … … . 23 Procedure… … … . 24 Measures… … … .. 25 Analysis… … … . 25 RESULT… … … 26 DISCUSSION… … … 27 Limitations… … … . 29
Implications and future directions… … … .. 30
REFERENCE LIST… … … 32
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERSONALITY AND PERFORMANCE IN A CHINESE CONTEXT
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, the relationship between personality and job performance has become a heated research topic in psychology, organizational behavior and human resource management. From Guion and Gottier’s (1965) qualitative personality testing literature review to Schmitt, Gooding, Noe, and Kirsch’s (1984) quantitative meta- analysis research about the personnel selection, all of these studies raised the popular research topic of relationship between personality and job performance.
More and more research indicates that the utility of personality tests are unsuspicious, and the traits of personality dimensions are used for organization as predictors in human resource management field (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Mount & Barrick, 1995; Ones, Mount, Barrick, & Hunter, 1994).
There are many personality surveys, and Big Five is one of them. The Big Five model (extraversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience) is first developed by Fiske (1949), Tupes & Christal (1961) and Norman (1963) made some modifications to this model later. In Norman’s model, dimensions labels are identified subsequently, and they become the most frequently used personality dimensions by many other scholars. Among these personality test methods, the Big Five model is regarded as the one with high validity and reliability. From an experiment of Big Five, the reliability alpha coefficients of all dimensions are quite high, ranging from .79 to .93 (Mlaˇci´c & Goldberg, 2007).
indicates an individual’s degree of hard working, persistence, and motivation in pursuing goal accomplishment (Zhao & Seibert, 2006). Openness to experience is defined by Zhao and Seibert (2006) as a personality dimension that characterizes individual who is intellectually curious and tends to seek new experiences and explore novel ideas. People with trait of openness to experience tend to be imaginative, cultured, broad-minded, curious, and untraditional.
Five personality dimensions in previous research have different effectiveness in predicting task performance and citizenship performance (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Hurtz & Donovan, 2000; and Kamdar & Van Dyne, 2007).
From most scholars, conscientiousness may be the dimension which mostly out of debates about its positive relationship with performance. No matter in Barrick & Mount’s (1991) meta- analysis, or in Kamdar & Van Dyne’s (2007) study, conscientiousness is positively related to both task and citizenship performance.
The relationship between openness to experience and performance is in an ever developing process comparing to the quite consistent relationship of conscientiousness and performance. From some early research, openness to experience is an ineffective predictor to performance, which can be shown in Barrick and Mount’s (1991) meta-analysis. However, recent research has show that there are new findings about the relation of openness to experience and performance. For example, Ones and Viswesvaran’s (1999) study show that openness to experience is important for the completing of tasks. In addition, for training and creative tasks, openness to experience is perceived to be an important predictor (Barrick et al., 2001).
Agreeableness’s relationship with performance is also quite complex. From most research, the relationship of agreeableness and task performance is non-significant (Hough et al., 1990 and Lepine & Van Dyne, 2001). On the contrary, the relationship of agreeableness and citizenship performance is positive in some studies (Barrick et al., 1998 and Hurtz & Donovan, 2000).
In many previous research (Barrick & Mount, 19991 and Van Scotter & Motowidlo, 1996), extraversion is not an important predictor to task performance. But it is positively related to citizenship performance from some researchers (Blumberg, 2001; Organ & Ryan, 1995; and Van Scotter & Motowidlo, 1996).
The last dimension in Big Five Model is emotional stability. It is a dimension positively related to performance which even becomes a “universal or generalizable predictor” from Barrick et al. (2001) and Hogan & Holland (2003).
from western participants. However, research about eastern countries is rarely but it is indeed important. For example, Wang (2000) argues that from his research, there is a close relationship between personality of employees and managers and their job performance especially citizenship performance in China. The truth is that research about Chinese personality and performance are quite limited until now. Most research in this field comes from western countries especially the USA. But the different culture characteristics in different countries make it hard for researchers to make predictions using research results from western directly in eastern countries (Shen & Wang, 2004). Shen & Wang (2004) argue strongly that there is a need to combine culture into the research of personality and performance relation and as a result, we can not miss eastern culture when researching personality and performance in eastern countries.
In this paper the relationship between personality and job performance is going to be investigated again; however, the context of the study is chosen to be China, rather than western countries. Three main reasons are going to give why I choose China as the research subject among so many eastern countries.
The first reason is about the insufficient research in China. Research, especially quantitative research about the relationship between Big Five personality and job performance is rare in China. Due to the late start of research in personality and job performance, there is a large gap between Chinese research and western research (Sun, 2007). According to Sun’s (2007) summary, the most of related articles could be found in China until now are about introducing western research results. Besides, Shen & Wang (2004) have also concluded that, research about Chinese employees’personality and performance is limited, and most of the studies are the reviews of western results. Therefore, a direct, and survey based study focusing on the Chinese personality and their job performances have important implication.
Thirdly, China is becoming an important economic entity in the world. According to the Global Competitiveness Report 2008-2009, “… China is now among the world’s top 30 economies”, and it “… is becoming more and more influential in global economy, is now the world’s fourth largest economic entity, following the US, Japan and Germany” (http://www1.cei.gov.cn/ce/doc/cen1/200810101443.htm). Interestingly, out of such a big economic entity, little research has been implemented investigating the relationship between personality and performance; as a result, to fill in the big research gap in a big economy, so the research focusing on organizations in China becomes meaningful.
To be concluded, this thesis will particularly emphasize on the relationship between Chinese employees’ personality and job performance. Considering the big cultural difference between China and other context, this relationship may not keep consistent in different countries (Ren & Liu, 2005; Shen & Wang, 2004), and five culture dimensions model developed by Hofstede (1980a, 1984, 1994) will be used to interpret those cultural differences. In the next part of this paper, Hofstede’s culture model will first be introduced and then be discussed to see how cultural difference influences the relationship between personality and job performance.
Culture Model of Hofstede
Hofstede (1991: 5) defines culture as mental programming from past experiences – “… the collective programming of mind which distinguishes the members of one group or society or category or nation from another”. Hofstede’s culture model offers five dimensions of culture— power distance, individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus femininity (also termed competitiveness versus cooperativeness) and uncertainty avoidance, and long-term/short-term orientation (which is also known as Confucian dynamism).
Individualism/ Collectivism
This is a culture dimension focusing on how an individual deals with the relationship between him/her and the people around him/her (Hofstede, 1983). Traits of this culture dimension include strong or weak mutual relationship between people, self identification towards oneself, and the attitude towards groups.
high individualism usually has loose relationship between individuals, strong self identification, and weak strength of mutual commitment, according to Batonda and Perry’s (2003) summary. Chinese members are usually thought to be high on collectivism. To be more specific, in China, family oriented relationship has gone beyond the family scope; and treating friends or organizational members like family members is a philosophy of Chinese people. Besides, the personal and reciprocal relationship are valued as more important than contracts, personal relationship mutual binds and permeates all aspects, strong mutual commitment, and relative preference for long-term “deep” relationship (Batonda & Perry, 2003).
Power distance
This dimension is about “… the degree of inequality among people which the population of a country considers as normal: from relatively equal (that is, small power distance) to extremely unequal (large power distance)” (Hofstede, 1993: 89).
The power distance in western organization is usually lower compared with the Chinese one. Western employees distrust authority, and seldom show particular preference on who they want to deal with. As a contrast, Chinese employees may be more inclined to accept the authority’s ideas when they have task, encounter problems or have conflicts (Batonda & Perry, 2003).
Masculinity/ Femininity
The two poles of this dimension are masculinity and femininity, each pole presents one kind of trait. The high masculinity means “assertiveness, the acquisition of money and things, and not caring for others, the quality of life, or people” (Hofstede, 1980b:46). High femininity owns the opposite traits.
Uncertainty avoidance
This is a dimension about “… how society deal with the fact that time only runs one way”(Hofstede, 1983: 81) and “the tendency to plan and avoid risk” (Batonda & Perry, 2003: 1564).
High uncertainty avoidance country people are thought to be good at planning and risk avoidance. They incline to obey settled rules when meeting conflicts, and evolution is their guiding principle (Batonda & Perry, 2003). And again from Batonda & Perry (2003), the Chinese members are considered to be good at handling tasks and aims which are in uncertain environment and they focus more on the ending results rather than the length of time. But it is quite difficult to classify western countries into high uncertainty avoidance or classify eastern countries into the low ones. From Hostede (1993), the USA is low on uncertainty avoidance, while France is high on this dimension. Also in east countries, Japan is high on this dimension, while China is with a medium extent.
Confucian dynamism
Confucian dynamism is about attitudes of what kind of relationship people want to develop, the short-term or the long-term, whether they prefer doing favors to others, and whether face is thought to be an important element in people’s daily life and work exchange (Batonda & Perry, 2003). These traits usually have another label, named short-term/ long-term orientation relationship.
Chinese members are usually high on Confucian dynamism. They tend to have high levels of reciprocation, with emphasis placed on building and maintaining relationships and friendships. Face is so important in Chinese people’s life, people “… avoid confrontation, embarrassment in case of failure to deliver and where conflicts arise between people” (Batonda & Perry, 2003: 1564). On the contrary, western members usually are low on this dynamism, and they show the opposite traits.
characteristics of two countries’ people because of individual differences, they do show us a general picture of what cultural characteristics do people in these two countries have. And also most these cultural scores from Hofstede (1993) are consistent with the later research results (Batonda & Perry, 2003). From table 1 some general information about the cultural characters in these two countries can be found. Chinese people are showing high scores in culture dimensions of power distance and Confucianism, low in individualism and medium in masculinity and uncertainty avoidance. The US people show low power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and Confucianism, while high in individualism and masculinity. Comparing the very specific scores of two countries, the cultural differences in the US and China are mainly shown in three dimensions— power distance, individualism/ collectivism, and Confucianism dynamism. The US is low in power distance, scoring 40, while China is high on this dimension, scoring 80. Individualism scores in the US are quite high, with a score of 91, as a strong contrast, it scores only 20 in China. The difference of Confucianism item may be the largest between two countries from Hofstede (1993), the US scores 29, while China scores 118.
HYPOTHESES
In this chapter the five culture dimensions put forward by Hofstede (1983, 1994) will be used to give some specific explanations of the relationship between five personality dimensions and two performance variables. Hypotheses will be built on the basis of each explanation. Hofstede’s cultural dimensions will be applied to discover the relationship between Chinese personality and work performance. Some of my hypotheses are consistent with the current western research results, while some of them are different with those results. The reasons causing these different results can be divided into two parts, in which one is due to the specific Chinese culture, and the other is the same with the situation in western countries.
Conscientiousness
relationship between conscientiousness and performance will be divided into two subparts, one is about conscientiousness and task performance, and another one is about conscientiousness and citizenship performance.
Barrick and Mount (1991:5) find that “conscientiousness measures those personal characteristics that are important for accomplishing work tasks in all jobs”. Barrick & Mount (1991), Salgado (1997), and Hurtz & Donovan (2000)’s meta-analyses also demonstrate that there is a positive correlation between conscientiousness and task performance. In sum, from most past research, conscientiousness is positively related to task performance.
Despite the different culture backgrounds comparing to the US, conscientiousness in some other countries is still positively related to task performance. Collectivism makes conscientiousness positively related to task performance. Responsibility and hardworking are traits of conscientiousness, meanwhile they are indispensable to accomplish tasks in all jobs by Barrick & Mount (1991), and these traits make conscientiousness a strong predictor to task performance. From the cultural research of Hofstede (1980, 1993) on strong collectivism, family/group orientation relationship and strong mutual commitment are popular among people, thus organizational members may regard the organizations’reputation and aim as their own, regard the aims of group as own aims. Such kind of culture could enhance the responsibility among members, so that organizational members may shown to be more careful and organized. As a result, although the collectivism is high on some eastern countries, collectivism may strengthen organizational members’ responsibility and makes them more hardworking, and conscientiousness and task performance are positively related.
Comparing to American members, Chinese organizational members are high on collectivism (Hostede, 1983). Dependability and hardworking are characters originated from high collectivism in Chinese philosophy. Therefore in China, conscientiousness and task performance are hypothesized to be positively related. One study made by Meng and Li (2004) on 240 supervisors in 72 enterprises about the personality and performance in Chinese organizations supports my hypothesis, and their results show thhat conscientiousness can almost predict all the task performance in all occupations.
Hypothesis1a. Conscientiousness is positively related to task performance in a Chinese context.
The positive relation between conscientiousness and citizenship performance in western has been certified by many scholars. For example, Hurtz and Donovan (2000) find that conscientiousness has the strongest relationship to citizenship performance comparing to other four personality dimensions. Van Scotter & Motowidlo (1996), Hattrup, O’Connell, & Wingate (1998), and LePine & Van Dyne (2001) have all demonstrated in their research that there is a positive relationship between conscientiousness and citizenship performance.
In high collectivism and Confucian Dynamism societies, the relationship of conscientiousness and citizenship performance should also be positive. For example, Konovsky and Organ (1996) stated that conscientiousness is related to helping behaviors because of its effective prediction to altruism; in addition, Motowidlo and Van Scotter (1994) argued that conscientiousness predicts volunteering to extra work. Altruism and volunteering to extra work are important traits of citizenship performance. From these analyses, it is possibly to imply that these two traits may make the relationship of conscientiousness and citizenship performance positive. From Batonda & Perry (2003) and So & Walker (2006), high collectivism and Confucian dynamism advocate the sprits of altruism, helping others, and strong mutual commitment. Therefore, in high collectivism and high Confucianism society, conscientiousness and citizenship performance should be positively related.
positively, and positive relationship between conscientiousness and citizenship performance can be predicted. Test result from Meng and Li (2004) supports this hypothesis. Meng and Li experienced on about 240 supervisors among 72 enterprises in China and they concluded that conscientiousness can almost predict all the citizenship performance in all occupations. Therefore,
Hypothesis1b. Conscientiousness is positively related to citizenship performance in a Chinese context.
Openness to experience
Most research has shown that there is no evidence that openness to experience could predict task performance in the US organizations (LePine, Colquitt, & Erez, 2000). From Barrick and Mount (1991)’s meta-analysis, openness to experience is proved to be an ineffective predictor to task performance as well. The traits of imaginative, curious, broad-minded, and cultured traits in openness are more about personal views to external environment and to communicating with others. Thus these traits must be classified into the contextual skill and contextual knowledge which facilitate to citizenship performance according to Motowidlo et al. (1997) but not to the producing or servicing goal of task performance.
From Motowidlo, Borman, & Schmit (1997) and Borman & Motowidlo (1993), openness is not positively related to task performance in western countries, because in the west task performance focuses on the products, service and core technical but not how to maintain or improve the social and psychological context. In countries which are deeply influenced by collectivism and Confucianism, social network is so important and group working takes a large part in tasks achieving in east (So & Walker, 2006), besides the cooperation and doing favors among people are quite common, and these are also important in group works. It seems in high collectivism and Confucianism societies, openness and task performance should be positively related.
organizational structure and the certain orders from organizations (Wang et al., 1998). If the colleagues or supervisors in organizations show to be openness to experience, it means they shall be open-minded to goals or be inclined to modify goals. The rigid hierarchy shall be destroyed. Such kind of actions may be adverse to other members’ actions, lead into a poor task performance. Therefore in high power distance society, openness to experience is negatively related to task performance.
China has a culture that is high on power distance (from Table 1, China scores 80, while the US scores half of that). Employees are accustomed to hierarchal structures and paternalistic leadership so that they are inclined to take the affirmative initiative or decisions from supervisors (Chen & Fahr, 2001). On one hand, LePine (2003) has argued that the organizational members with high openness to experience often adopt some different actions according to the dynamic environment. But on the other hand, these changed actions may not be consistent with their task habits or task knowledge who working in paternalistic cultural environment for a long time. In a short term, the problem of changing behaviors, task habits, and task knowledge may be difficult to solve, thus this confusion will deteriorate task performance. As a result, a hypothesis can be made,
Hypothesis 2a. Openness to experience is negatively related to task performance in a Chinese context.
In previous research from the US, openness is neither a positive predictor to citizenship performance, just like its relationship with task performance. For example, Mount et al. (1998) report that in their study, openness to experience is not a positive predictor in predicting performance involving interactions with others, their own study also proved this point. Similarly, Barrick, Parks, & Mount (2005) use their study to support the previous findings that there is no empirical evidence or intuition reason to associate openness to experience with interpersonal performance.
environment. Citizenship habits and citizenship knowledge are intervening variables of citizenship performance (Motowidlo et al., 1997), once the old citizenship environment is suspected by members, the original citizenship habits and knowledge will be deteriorated, organizational members’ authority to organizations will be unbalanced and the new citizenship knowledge and habits could not be built in a short period; and it will be difficult to attract employees’loyalty towards organizations or facilitation towards others.
Chinese organizational members show negative citizenship performance in a high power distance society. With a high power distance characteristic (from Table 1), organizational structures and hierarchies are strict in China, certainty and authority from supervisors are worshiped by subordinators in organizations. Introducing openness to experience to these organizations may bring some creative thinking to members; however, authority may be suspected, the old pattern of implementing orders from supervisors is challenged, and members’ fear of uncertainty working goal is raised in a short term. Furthermore, the old citizenship knowledge and habits could be affected. Finally citizenship performance in such environment must be deteriorated. Therefore, in Chinese organizations, the hypothesis can be deduced:
Hypothesis 2b. Openness to experience is negatively related to citizenship performance in a Chinese context.
Agreeableness
The relationship between agreeableness and task performance is rather weak from former western studies. Borman, White, & Dorsey (1995) state that likeability has little effect on task performance. Being consistent with this argument, LePine and Van Dyne (2001) argue that there is no notable correlation between agreeableness and task performance. Besides, Houugh et al. (1990), Salgado (1997), and Hurtz & Donovan (2002) use meta-analyses to certify that there is no relationship between agreeableness and task performance.
along with others, agreeableness is an effective predictor to performance. Based on these arguments, the dependence of team working in performing tasks is vital to the relation of agreeableness and task performance. Several reasons of team cooperation is indispensable in high collectivism and high power distance society when finishing tasks make the relationship positive.
People with high collectivism may tend to be working with teams. Li, Zhang, Bhatt, and Yum’s (2006) research apparently reveals that people in India and China are more interdependent than in Canada and in high collectivism society people prefer working together to finish tasks.
In the high power distance society, the autocratic and paternalistic atmosphere is quite thick (Batonda & Perry, 2003). From Zhao (2006), the supervisors with strong autocratic and paternalistic working style are used to holding resources or seldom empowerment to their subordinators. Members who want to implement tasks may choose working together in order to combine resources they have as much as possible together. Therefore, organizational members in high power distance environment need more coordination with each other to finish tasks.
Due to the importance of team working to the relationship between agreeableness and team tasks by Barrick & Mount (1991) and Johnson (2003), in some collectivism and high power distance societies, people have more possibilities to cooperate together and work together in teams, thus agreeableness should be related to task performance.
China is a typical country with high collectivism and power distance. From the statistics in table 1, Chinese power distance scores 80, while the American is half of that; individualism in China scores 20, as a strong contrast, the US is 91. In this kind of country, Chinese people are educated to cooperate with others and accept ideas from supervisors, family oriented views have infused into working place, thus cooperation in tasks achieving become indispensable. Based on the culture discussion, agreeableness is positively related to task performance because of the preference for team work and cooperation in China.
Hypothesis3a. Agreeableness is positively related to task performance in a Chinese context.
performance (Van Scotter & Motowildo, 1996). The predictive efforts from agreeableness to citizenship performance have been recognized by many researchers, for example, Barrick, Stewart, Neubert, and Mount (1998), Hurtz and Donovan (2000). In Motowidlo et al. (1997: 81), one intervening variables of citizenship performance— citizenship skills “… are determined largely by personality traits such as agreeableness”. Then we may deduce that the key point to this relationship is traits of agreeableness. These traits reduce conflicts among members, remove barriers to performance, and help coworkers to perform their tasks, finally improve citizenship performance.
Confucian dynamism and collectivism make the positive relationship between agreeableness and citizenship performance through strengthen these traits of agreeableness. Firstly, Confucianism advocates forgiveness, giving way, and be acceptable to achieve harmony (So & Walker, 2006). These traits of Confucianism advocate members in organizations accept and confirm others’ idea, to cooperate with others, and to be flexible. Secondly, in high collectivism society, once the friendship is built, the strong mutual commitment among people and the family or group oriented work style make members in organizations take others as home members or friends but not competitors. These two cultural dimensions enhance traits of agreeableness such as cooperative, flexible, trusting, and good-natured, so the relationship between agreeableness and citizenship performance is positive (Barrick, Stewart, Neubert, & Mount, 1998).
traits of agreeableness, which draw the positive relationship in the hypothesis.
Hypothesis3b. Agreeableness is positively related to citizenship performance in a Chinese context.
Extraversion
The relationship between extraversion and task performance in most research of western scholars is rather weak. Sociable, talkative, and active people do not perform better in task performance comparing to people without these traits. From Barrick and Mount (1991) the traits of extraversion is less important to jobs that focus on task finishing than jobs that need interaction and communication. Van Scotter & Motowidlo (1996) and LePine & Van Dyne (2001) also argue that extraversion is not so strongly related to task performance as to citizenship performance. In another words, none relationship between these two variables is because traits of extraversion are not so related to task-oriented works.
country— America, and in two eastern countries –Thailand, and China, the cultural differences do not make an influence on this link.
With the same reasons as above, we may suppose that extraversion is not positively related to task performance in China. Recalling table1, Chinese members are high on collectivism and Confucianism comparing to the US members. But the cultural differences do not make traits of extraversion related to the fulfilling of tasks. Finally the conclusion is draw that extraversion is not related to task performance.
Views about the relationship of extraversion and citizenship performance can be divided into two parties. One party holds the standpoint that the relationship is positive. The representatives are: meta-analysis from Organ and Ryan (1995), they summarized that extraversion is related to measures of voluntary helping and cooperativeness; Van Scotter and Motowidlo (1996) find that extraversion correlated with the interpersonal facilitation dimension of citizenship performance; and Blumberg (2001)’s study result again supports former argument that extraversion correspond positively with organization members’ social roles. The other party makes the opposite argument. Smith et al. (1983) and Barrick et al. (1992) all found there is no relationship between extraversion and citizenship performance. In Neuman & Kickul’s (1998: 276) research report, they admit that extraversion is an indicator of outgoing, friendly characters, but “… the current research study does not support this relationship with citizenship behaviors such as the concern for other employees or for the welfare of the organization”.
(Hofstede, 1993), from Robie et al.’s (2005) study extraverts in Japan are high on citizenship performance. This study focuses on personality, culture and performance, using American and Japanese subjects to show that even there is two kinds of culture, extraversion still emerges as the most important personality dimensions to the overall performance assessment (Robie, Brown & Bly, 2005). Besides, suppose one society is high in power distance, be talkative, active, and sociable may help breaking the strict hierarchy of organizations, raising the interaction and cooperativeness of members which finally good for citizenship performance improvement.
Many studies in China have proved that the extraversion of Chinese people is positive to their citizenship performance. For example, from Ren and Liu (2005)’s study, even though there are different cultural backgrounds (from Table 1, the quite different cultural scores in collectivism/ individualism, power distance, and Confucianism) between the American people and Chinese people , the Chinese members who are extraverts show the same high citizenship performance as American members. A study of Taiwan also shows that Chinese people are high on Confucian dynamism and collectivism, within such a environment the extroverts in long term network “… may adjust better at work, in interactions with others, and in general living activities, as compared to introvert expatriates” (Huang, Chi & Lawler, 2005). Thus the hypothesis about extraversion and citizenship performance in China is that,
Hypothesis 4. Extraversion is positively related to citizenship performance in a Chinese context.
Emotional stability
Again the relationship about emotional stability and two kinds of performance will be discussed respectively.
accomplish tasks at work, and if they are motivated at all, it is to avoid failure at work” (Barrick, Mitchell, & Stewart, 2003: 67).
Though the culture is different between west and east, it does not make an influence to the positive relationship of emotional stability and task performance. From former analysis we could get people who are high on emotional stability usually are less likely to be disrupted by temperamental and impulsive moods (Driskell et al., 1988), thus they are much calmer and easier to be motivated to achieve high task performance. So how to motivate one’s confidence becomes the key point of the relationship. In eastern countries, some countries have high power distance, high collectivism, and high Confucianism, but these cultural dimensions have no relation to how to raise someone’s motivation. Thus even those countries have different culture with western countries, the relationship of emotional stability and task performance is still positively.
According to Hofsted and et al.’s (1984, 1991, 1994) research, Chinese people are high on power distance, collectivism, and Confucianism. But these cultural dimensions are mostly about how to build relationship with supervisors, with colleagues, and subordinators, but not about how to make facilitation to one’s working confidence. From the analysis above, high emotional stability members in the organizations may less feel depressed, embarrassed, worried, and insecure (Barrick & Mount, 1991), thus they are easily to be motivated during working, the task performance of them could be higher.
Hypothesis 5. Emotional stability is positively related to task performance in a Chinese context.
The report from Mount et al. (1998) notes that emotional stability is an important predictor to interpersonal performance. Salgado (1997) uses meta-analysis to certify his hypothesis that emotional stability is a valid predictor to citizenship performance in the European community. Furthermore, Barrick, Park, and Mount (2005)’s study approves the former statement that emotional stability is positively related to interpersonal performance.
commitment and tend to fake their real emotion in work environment (Chen, 2004). Thus even the emotional stability of someone is quite, out of the collectivism he may pretend to be high on it. Finally, the emotional stability of this person loses its predictive effort to citizenship performance. Second, from the influence of low uncertain avoidance, organizational members are better at achieving aims in an uncertain or dynamic environment. A long planning and dynamic environment qualified people with traits of calm, dynamism, and strong controlling of emotions. Thus, those people are commonly good at pretending their emotions in daily working life. Due to the reasons above, emotional stability becomes unrelated to citizenship performance.
Chinese people are usually high in collectivism. As discussed in the last paragraph, high collectivism could make emotional stability lose its predictive effort to citizenship performance, on one hand, they make people put more emphasis on relationship and seeking consistency, harmony; on the other hand, they make people embed their real emotions. Citizenship performance then becomes unpredicted by emotional stability. Thus, there is no relationship between emotional stability and citizenship performance.
METHOD Sample
This study is designed to measure the relationship between the five elements in Big-five personality model and performance in China. The five elements include conscientiousness, emotional stability, extraversion, agreeableness, and openness to experience. The performance includes two variables— task performance and citizenship performance.
I examined the research questions with six companies from different industries in China, these companies cover industries such as: architecture, textile, manufacture, service, ICT, and chemistry. These six companies come from different provinces and area. One company locates in Sichuan Province, four in Zhejiang Province, and one in Shanghai.
15 people come from service company, 10 people come from ICT company, and 5 people come from chemistry company. A total number of 83 participants filled in the questionnaires in this survey, due to some personal information missing, not all data from these questionnaires could be used, thus finally the valid response number is 64. Most of the participants in this study with an age between 30 to 40. On an average, the supervisors are with 7 years tenure. All of them are men.
Procedure
The supervisors were responsible for the questionnaire named A which focus on subordinates’ task and citizenship performance. Firstly, supervisors were given a short introduction about what this survey is about, what is the aim of this survey, and the promise of personal data protection. These statements also appear in a cover letter above every questionnaire. The aim of these actions is to make the resistance emotion of supervisors become the lowest, and improving the validity of this survey. Secondly, it is the responsibility of supervisors to decide which subordinates will attend into personality survey, and then according to their decisions, supervisors filled in the questionnaires of performance to subordinates. Each questionnaire takes about 10 minutes. At last questionnaires are collected with sequence number.
Participants of personality survey were asked to take part in an anonymous survey which takes each of them about 10 to 15 minutes. The same procedure was taken as in the survey of performance. First, participants were given short introduction about this survey, those statements also appeared in the cover letter of each questionnaire. Secondly, participants complete those questionnaires in an independent environment. Thirdly, the finished questionnaires were collected in sequence number matched with performance questionnaires.
Measures
Published and validated measures are used in this survey. One is the Big-five personality measurement, comes from Goldberg (1992) (http://ipip.ori.org/). In this measurement 50 items are used by employees to test their five personality dimensions. Respondents used 5-point scales (1= very inaccurate, 5= very accurate) to indicate how they felt themselves in daily life or work. The 50 items of questionnaires covers five personalities,
each personality dimension has 10 matched items. Sample items from each personality are: “I
always prepared”, “I have a rich vocabulary”, “I am relaxed most of the time”, “I start conversations”, and “I have a soft heart”. The items in the questionnaires are all very simple and brief sentence which is convenient to read and understand.
Another survey is performance measurement, which focus on both citizenship performance and task performance. The first performance measurement is about organizational citizenship behavior directed to individuals (OCBI) and to organizations (OCBO). All 16 items come from Lee and Allen (2002). The second one is about task performance, items come from different resources, two of them were from Tsui (1984), two items were adapted from Heilman, Block, and Lucas (1992), and two items were developed by Wayne, Liden, Graf, and Ferris (1999). All items in the measurement were coded on a 5-point scale (1= very inaccurate, 5= very accurate). The sample items for task performance,
OCBI, and OCBO are: “
In my estimation, this employee gets his or her work done very
effectively
”, “This employee helps others who have been absent”, and “This employee keeps up with developments in the organization”.Both questionnaires ask participants to fill in their personal information such as gender, age, working industry, tenure in current company. The original questionnaires are all in English, and the participants in this survey are all Chinese, so the questionnaires are translated into Chinese. In order to keep the veracity of translation, the questionnaires are first translated into Chinese, then back into English to compare with the original one and made some modification.
Analysis
personality dimensions as the main effects are entered in the second step. Then results after two steps are used to test my hypotheses.
RESULTS
Table 2 depicts the means, standard deviations of five dimensions in personality, two performance dimensions and three control variables— gender, and tenures. It also presents the correlations of these variables. As expected, agreeableness is positively related to task performance (r=. 38, p< 0.01) and citizenship performance (r= .35, p<0.01). Also as expected, conscientiousness is positively related to both task performance (r=.28, p<0.05), and citizenship performance (r=.38, p<0.01). And there is a positive relationship between emotional stability and task performance (r=.33, p<0.01). But what is different from previous hypotheses is that, emotional stability is positively related to citizenship performance (r=.37, p<0.01). But there is neither positive relationship between extraversion and citizenship performance (r= .25, p>0.05) or negative relationship between openness to experience and task, citizenship performance (r=.01, p>0.05; r=.02, p>0.05). None of gender, age, and tenure is related to task performance or citizenship performance.
Table 3 summarized the results of regression analysis.
In hypothesis 1a, the relationship between conscientiousness and task performance should be positive, the result is out of my expectation (β=.16, p>0.1). But some results of this study are consistent with my previous hypotheses. Hypotheses2a is about the relationship of openness to experience and task performance. Openness to experience is negatively related to task performance in a Chinese context from result, thus hypothesis2a is supported by the final result (β=-.46, p<0.01). In hypothesis3a agreeableness is positively related to task performance is a Chinese context, this hypothesis is also supported by the study result (β=.47, p<0.01). As I expected, extraversion is not related to task performance in this study (β=.15, p>0.1). In hypothesis 5, emotional stability is an effective predictor to task performance, but in study result emotional stability and task performance are not positively related (β=.17, p>0.1), which is out of my expectation.
performance (β=.35, p<0.05). The study result is consistent with my previous hypothesis 2b, there is a negative relationship between openness to experience and citizenship performance (β=-.49, p<0.01). Hypothesis 3b is also supported by the regression results after taking into account the effects of control variables. Agreeableness is positively related to citizenship performance as in hypothesis 3b (β=.35, p<0.05). Extraversion is not positively related to citizenship performance from result (β=.18, p>0.1) as in hypothesis 4. But the none relationship between emotional stability and citizenship performance is consistent with my expectation (β=.18, p>0.1).
Comparing the regression results of two performance variables, the former data is higher than the latter. Personality variables contribute 34.8% to the prediction of citizenship performance, while 29% to the prediction of task performance.
DISCUSSION
This paper is mainly about discovering the relationship between personality and performance in Chinese cultural background. After this study, we could confirm that culture is a element which influences the relationship of personality and performance.
could get that the Chinese culture make an influence to the relationship between these two variables.
Other results which are certified to be consistent with my hypothesis are the relationships of openness to experience and two variables of performance. These two pairs of relationship are negative, openness to experience is negatively related to both task and citizenship performance. The present results differ from former mentioned western research. For example, from Barrick and Mount’s (1991)meta- analysis, openness to experience is judged as a ineffective predictor to task performance; from Barrick, Parks, and Mount (2005), their working result shows there is no relationship between openness to experience and citizenship performance. Actually it is a rather interesting part. In the hypothesis part I fisrt argued that in China, the collectivism and Confucianism are high, coordinative and help behaviors are indispensable in accomplishing tasks. It seems that this situation could be used to overthrow the argument that openness is not positive related to task performance is because of its unconcentration on coordinating. It seems we could make the hypothesis that in a high collectivism and Confucianism society, openness is positively related to task performance. But there is much stronger reason to make the hypothesis that openness is negatively related to task performance. In high power distance culture such as in China, people are used to accepting orders or instructions from upper-level and the organizational hierarchies are quite strict. People with high openness shall be open-minded, curious, and suspect to the current situation they are facing. In such a state, the authority of organizations and their short-term loyalty may be destroyed. Therefore we could deduce that task performance could not be high among those people. Finally, this hypothesis is supported by the study result. The existing Chinese research about this relationship quite limited. For example, though Yang (1998) admits that Chinese people are affirmative, stable, and consistent (which make the key points in influencing relationship of openness and performance on my hypothesis analysis), he did not make a study to research whether these characteristics influence the relationship of openness to experience and performance. Thus even though my hypotheses are supported by my study, due to the interesting different study results with western countries’, this personality dimension worth further more research.
performance and citizenship performance, it is only found to be related to citizenship performance. Individuals who are high on conscientiousness are usually thought to be hardworking, persistence, careful, and responsible (Mount & Barrick, 1995). These characteristics are recognized to be important reasons which make conscientiousness positively related to performance by most researchers no matter in west or east. Chinese culture does have an influence on this relationship, but it does not make a change to the positive relationship. Strangely, the hypothesis is only half supported by this study, there is no positive relation between conscientiousness and task performance. Out of culture difference and education differences, people in east and west may have different understanding to the same thing. Thus the inconsistency of this result with former western results and hypothesis may come from different understanding between China and the US to conscientiousness. The translation of conscientiousness sentences in personality questionnaire may need more some modifies according to culture and expressing way of Chinese people. Thus whether the conscientiousness sentences in personality questionnaire could be directly translated and used and how to make exact translation is a question worth further research.
Based on the research result, there are two study results which are different from my hypotheses or the previous western research results. The relationship between extraversion and citizenship performance appears to be none. And emotional stability failed to be a positive predictor to task performance.
Limitations
The relationship of personality and performance in this paper may also be influenced by some other culture dimensions which are not discussed in this paper. Culture is a complex factor which is quite difficult to be classified. The Hofstede’s (1980a, 1984, 1994) culture model used in this paper could cover most of the important culture dimensions but still not all. Therefore we could not know how the other cultural dimensions influence our research subjects, some other culture dimensions may worthy of adding into studies in the future research.
usually have longer time working together than supervisors and subordinates, citizenship performance is about the personal facilitation among people, thus the peers may have some different views to their colleagues’citizenship performance. Adding peer-rating citizenship performance into this study, the performance measurement may be more objective. But even the ratings from peers to their colleagues’citizenship performance are different from their supervisors, whether the rating results are different are still do not know from present study. Based on these arguments, the citizenship performance rating may be more exact from both supervisors- rating and peers-rating.
Implications and Future Directions
The main target for this paper is to discover how culture influences the relationship of personality and performance. With Chinese culture as a specific research subject, this paper indicates that this relationship is influenced by different culture from west to east. For example, from most research in western countries there is no relationship between task performance and agreeableness (Hurtz & Donovan, 2002). Johnson (2003) argued agreeableness is relevant to task performance which involves team working. In China the collectivism is high, people are more interdependent and prefer choosing team working when finishing tasks (Li et al., 2006). Therefore the hypothesis is made that task performance and agreeableness are positively related in a Chinese context. In the study result, this hypothesis is certified. Thus the present study contributes to the theory by providing the ideas that culture is an important factor which can not be ignored in researching the relationship between personality and performance.
positively related to task performance in China, but no relationship with task performance in the US. Considering culture influence in recruiting can improve the predictive effectiveness of personality to performance, thus insure to recruit higher performance candidates and reduce the cost for training lower performance employees. To some multinational companies, influences from culture to the relationship of personality and performance are especially important. In such situation, the culture of both parent company and subsidiary company need to be considered when using personality to predict performance, the situation may be more complex. Thus it will not be specifically discussed in this paper and is worth some further research. Another practical implication of this study is that organizations could use the influence of culture to personality and performance’s relationship in the training program. Again the relationship of agreeableness and task performance will be used. A is a person comes from the US and now he is working in China. After kinds of objective personality surveys, we could get that this person is high on agreeableness. If the organization A is working with now wants to improve his task performance, the training could be designed as improving his collectivism. A is in the environment of high collectivism, and in this environment task performance is positively related to agreeableness from previous study. With high agreeableness and after successful training about collectivism, A is now having potential in improving his task performance.
REFERENCE
Barrick, M. R., Mitchell, T. R., & Stewart, G. L. 2003. Situational and motivational influences on trait-behavior relationships. In M. R. Barrick & A. M. Ryan (Eds.), Personality and work: Reconsidering the role of personality in organizations: 60-82. San Francisco, CA : Jossey-Bass.
Barrick, M. R., & Mount, M. K. 1991. The big five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44, 1-26.
Barrick, M. R., & Mount, M. K. 1993. Autonomy as a moderator of the relationships between the big five personality dimensions and job performance, Journal of Applied Psychology, 78(1):111-118.
Barrick, M.R., Mount, M.K., & Judge, T. A. 2001. Personality and performance at the beginning of the new millennium: What do we know and where do we go next? International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 9(1/2): 9–30.
Barrick, M. R., Parks, L., & Mount, M. K. 2005. Self-monitoring as a moderator of the relationships between personality traits and performance. Personnel Psychology, 58(3): 745-767.
Barrick, M. R., Stewart, G. L., Neubert, M., & Mount, M. K. 1998. Relating member ability and personality to work team processes and team effectiveness. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83, 377–391.
Batonda, G., & Perry, C. 2003. Influence of culture on relationship development processes in overseas Chinese/Australian network. European Journal of Marketing, 37(11/12): 1548-1574.
Borman, W. C., & Motowidlo, S. J. 1993. Expanding the criterion domain to include elements of contextual performance. In N. Schmitt & W. C. Borman (Eds.), Personnel selection in organizations: 71–98. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Borman, W. C., White, L. A., & Dorsey, D. W. 1995. Effects of rate task performance and interpersonal factors on supervisor and peer performance ratings. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80, 168–177.
Chen, S. F. 2004. Social interests and the collectivism in it. Journal of Sichuan Normal university, 20(9): 18-19.
Chen, X.P., & Fahr, J.L. 2001. Transformational and transactional leader behaviors in Chinese organizations: Differential effects in the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan, New York: JAI.
Costa P. T., & McCrae, R. R. 1992. Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual. Odessa, FL: PAR. Conway, M.J. 1999. Distinguishing contextual performance from task performance for
managerial jobs. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84(1): 3-13.
Culp, G., & Smith, A. 2005. leadership effectiveness and behavior. Leadership & Management in Engineering, 5(2): 39-48.
Driskell, J. E., Hogan, R., & Salas, E. 1988. Personality and group performance. Review of Personality and Social Psychology, 14, 91-112.
Driskell, J.E., Salas, E., Hogan, R. 1987. Taxonomy for composing effective naval teams. Technical Report No. TR87002. Naval Training Systems Center, Orlando, FL.
Dustdar, S., & Hofstede, G. J. 1999. Videoconferencing across cultures— a conceptual framework for floor control issues. Journal of Information Technology, 14, 161-169. Furnham, A. & Fudge, C. 2008. The five factor model of personality and sales performance.
Journal of Individual Differences, 29(1): 11–16.
Ghiselli, E.E. 1973. The validity of aptitude tests in personnel selection. Personnel Psychology, 26, 461-477.
Guion, R. M., & Cottier, R. F. 1965. Validity of personality measures in personnel selection. Personnel Psychology, 18, 135-164.
Hurtz, G. M., & Donovan, J. J. 2000. Personality and job performance: The big five revisited. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(6): 869-879.
Han, K. H., Li, M. C., & Hwang, K. K. 2005. Cognitive responses to favor requests from different social targets in a Confucian society. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 22(2): 283–294.
Heilman, M.E., Block, C.J., & Lucas, J.A. 1992. Presumed incompetent? Stigmatization and affirmative action efforts. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77: 536-544.
Higgins, D., Peterson, J., Pihl, R., and Lee, A. 2007. Prefrontal cognitive ability, intelligence, big five personality, and the prediction of advanced academic and workplace performance, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(2): 298.
Hough, L. M., Eaton, N. K., Dunnette, M. D., Kamp, J. D., & McCloy, R. A. 1990. Criterion-related validities of personality constructs and the effect of response distortion on those validities. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75, 581–595.
Hofstede, G. 1980a. Cultures’ Consequences: International differences in work related values. California: Sage Publications.
Hofstede, G. 1980b. Motivation, leadership, and organization: Do American theories apply
abroad?Organizational Dynamics, 9(1): 42-63.
Hofstede, G. 1983. The cultural relativity of organizational practices and theories. Journal of International Business Studies, 14(2): 75-89.
Hofstede, G. 1984. Motivation, leadership and motivation: do American theories apply abroad? The Hong Kong Manager, 20(2): 7-18.
Hofstede, G. 1991. Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. London: McGraw-Hill.
Hofstede, G. 1994. Management scientists are human. Management Science, 40(1): 4-13. Hogan, J., & Holland, B. 2003. Using theory to evaluate personality and job performance
relations: A socioanalytic perspective. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(1): 100- 112. Huang, T. J., Chi, S. C., & Lawler, J. J. 2005. The relationship between expatriates’
personality traits and their adjustment to international assignments. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 16(9): 1656-1670.
Hurtz, G. M., & Donvon, J. J. 2000. Personality and job performance: The big five revisited. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(6): 869-879.
Johnson, J. W. 2001. The relative importance of task and contextual performance dimensions to supervisor judgments of overall performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 984–996.
and individual job performance. In M. R. Barrick & A. M. Ryan (Eds.), Personality at work: Reconsidering the role of personality in organizations: 60–82. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Kamdar, D., & Van Dyne, L. 2007. The joint effects of personality and workplace social exchange relationship in predicting task performance and citizenship performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(5): 1286-1298.
Lee, K., & Allen, N. J. 2002. Organizational citizenship behavior and workplace deviance: the role of affect cognitions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(1):131-142.
LePine, J. A. 2003. Team adaptation and post change performance: The effects of team composition in terms of members’ cognitive ability and personality. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 27–39.
LePine, J. A., & Van Dyne, L. 2001. Voice and cooperative behavior as contrasting forms of contextual performance: Evidence of differential relationships with big five personality characteristics and cognitive ability. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 325–336. Li, H. Z., Zhang, Z., Bhatt, G., & Yum, Y. O. 2006. Rethinking culture and self-construal:
China as a middle land. Journal of Social Psychology, 146(5): 591-610.
Liu, H. Y., & Zhang, M. G. 2006. The Characteristics of the ethical thought of Confucianism and the practice of fair justice in modern society. Yuntech Journal of Chinese Studies, 2:127-164.
Meng, H., & Li, Y. X. 2004. A research on the relationship between big-five personality and leadership effectiveness, Psychological Science, 27(3): 611-614.
Mlaˇci´c, B., & Goldberg, L. R. 2007. An Analysis of a Cross-Cultural Personality Inventory: The IPIP Big-Five Factor Markers in Croatia. Journal of Personal Assessment, 88(2):168-177.
Motowidlo, S. J., Borman. W. C., & Schmitt, M.J. 1997. A theory of individual differences in task and contextual performance. Human performance, 10(2): 71-83.
Mount, M. K., Barrick, M. R., & Stewart, G. L. 1998. Five-factor model of personality and performance in jobs involving interpersonal interactions. Human Performance, 11, 145–165.
Neuman, G. A., & Kickul, J. R. 1998. Organizational citizenship behaviors: Achievement orientation and personality. Journal of Business and Psychology, 13(2): 263-279. Katz, D., & Kahn, R. L. 1978. The social psychology of organizations. New York: Wiley. Kwong, Y. Y. J., & Cheung, M. F. 2003. Prediction of performance facets using specific
personality traits in the Chinese context. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 63(1):99 – 110.
Ones, D. S., Mount, M. K., Barrick, M. R., & Hunter, J. E. 1994. Personality and job performance: A critique of the Tett, Jackson, and Rothstein (1991) meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 47(1): 147-156.
Organ, D. W., & Ryan, K. 1995. A meta-analytic review of attitudinal and dispositional predictors of organizational citizenship behaviors. Personnel Psychology, 48, 775-802. Redding, S.G. 1990. The spirit of Chinese capitalism. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Ren, H., & Liu, L. 2005. The advance in correlation research between big five personality dimensions and job performance. Psychological Science, 28(2):406 – 408.
Robie, C., Brown, J., Bly, R. 2005. The big five in the USA and Japan. Journal of Management Development, 24(8): 720-737.
Salgado, J. F. 1997. The five factor model of personality and job performance in the European community. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82(4): 30-43.
Schmitt, N., Gooding, R.Z., Noe, R.A., & Kirsch, M. 1984. Metaanalyses of validity studies published between 1964 and 1982 and the investigation of study characteristics. Personnel Psychology, 37(3): 407-422.
Shen, Z. R., & Wang, E. P. 2004. Reviewing of contextual performance. Advances in Psychological Science, 12(6): 924-931.
Singelis, T.M., Triandis, H.C., Bhawuk, D.P.S. & Gelfand, M.J. 1995. Horizontal and vertical dimensions of individualism and collectivism: A theoretical and measurement
refinement. Cross-cultural Research, 29: 240-7.
York.
Strauss, J. P., & Connerley, M. L. 2003. Demographics, personality, contact, and universal-diverse orientation: an exploratory examination. Human Resource Management, 42(2): p159-174.
Sun, J. 2007. The Relation between Salesperson Personality Particularity and
Achievement Effect Study. Unpublished master dissertation, University of Xinjiang,
Xinjiang.
Thomas, D.C., Au, K., & Ravlin, E.C. 2003. Cultural variation and the psychological contract , Journal of Organizational Behavior, 24: 451 -71.
Triandis, H.C., & Gelfand, M.J. 1998. Converging measurement of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74: 118-28.
Tsui, A. S. 1984. A role set analysis of managerial reputation. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 34: 64-96.
Van Scotter, J. R., & Motowidlo, S. J.1996. Interpersonal facilitation and job dedication as separate facets of contextual performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81(5): 525-531.
Wang, C. M. 2000. Management Psychology. Beijing: People’s Education Press.
Wayne, S. J., Liden, R. C., Graf, I. K., & Ferris, G. R. 1999. The role of upward influence tactics in human resource decision. Personnel Psychology, 50:979-1006.
Whitcomb, L. L., Erdener, C. B., & Cheng, L. 1998. Journal of Business Ethics, 17(8):839-852.
Witt, L. A. 2002. The interactive effects of extraversion and conscientiousness on performance. Journal of Management, 28, 835.
Yang, B. 1998. The current research of big five personality sorting. Journal of Nanjing normal university (Social science edition), 1: 79-83.
APPENDIX
TABLE 1
The Cultural Scores in the US and China
PD ID MA UA CD
USA 40L 91H 62H 46L 29L
China 80H 20L 50M 60M 118H
Note: PD = Power Distance; ID = Individualism; MA = Masculinity; UA = Uncertainty Avoidance; CD = Confucian dynamism
H = High, M = Medium, L = Low
TABLE 2
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations
variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1.TP 2.55 .53 － 2.CP 2.44 .42 .74** － 3.A 3.53 .47 .38** .35** － 4.O 3.22 .41 .01 .02 .49** － 5.C 3.66 .43 .28* .38** .61** .49** － 6.EX 2.83 .41 .24 .25 .42** .48** .25* － 7.EM 3.29 .59 .33** .37** .26* .20 .32** .26* － 8.Gender 1.5 .50 .04 .12 .14 .16 .18 -.20 -.10 － 9.Age 2.36 .90 .02 .12 -.27* -.11 -.08 -.11 .03 -.16 － 10.Tenure 5.77 3.64 -.12 .04 -.15 .01 -.09 -.22 -.10 .24 .16 －
Note: TP= Task performance; CP= Citizenship performance; A= Agreeableness; O= Openness to experience; C= Conscientiousness; EX=Extraversion; EM= Emotional stability.
Gender: 1 means male, 2 means female.
Age: 1 means age among 20-30, 2 means among 30-40, 3 means among 40-50, 4 means above 50.
TABLE 3
Moderated Hierarchical Regression Analysis of personality and performance
Variables entered task performance citizenship performance
Step 1
Gender .10 .18
Age .07 .16
Tenure -.15 -.01
R square (adjusted R square) .02 (-.03) .05 (-.00)
Step 2 Gender -.11 -.05 Age .16 .24 * Tenure -.05 .10 Agreeableness .47** .35* Conscientiousness .16 .35* Emotional stability .17 .18 Extraversion .15 .19 Openness to experience -.46** -.49** R sequare △ .29** .35**
