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The role of employee personality in employee satisfaction and turnover: insights from online employee reviews

Ruigang Wu (School of Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China)
Xuefeng Zhao (School of Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China)
Zhuo Li (School of Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China)
Yang Xie (School of Mechanical Engineering, Wuhan Institute of Shipbuilding Technology, Wuhan, China)

Personnel Review

ISSN: 0048-3486

Article publication date: 8 February 2024

Issue publication date: 16 October 2024

1087

Abstract

Purpose

Online employee reviews have emerged as a crucial information source for business managers to evaluate employee behavior and firm performance. The purpose of this paper is to test the relationship between employee personality traits, derived from online employee reviews and job satisfaction and turnover behavior at the individual level.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors apply text-mining techniques to extract personality traits from online employee reviews on Indeed.com based on the Big Five theory. They also apply a machine learning classification algorithm to demonstrate that incorporating personality traits can significantly enhance employee turnover prediction accuracy.

Findings

Personality traits such as agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness are positively associated with job satisfaction, while extraversion and neuroticism are negatively related to job satisfaction. Moreover, the impact of personality traits on overall job satisfaction is stronger for former employees than for current employees. Personality traits are significantly linked to employee turnover behavior, with a one-unit increase in the neuroticism score raising the probability of an employee becoming a former employee by 0.6%.

Practical implications

These findings have implications for firm managers looking to gain insights into employee online review behavior and improve firm performance. Online employee review websites are recommended to include the identified personality traits.

Originality/value

This study identifies employee personality traits from automated analysis of employee-generated data and verifies their relationship with employee satisfaction and employee turnover, providing new insights into the development of human resources in the era of big data.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Funding: This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China NSFC (No: 71810107003), the National Social Science Funds of China NSSFC (No:18ZDA109) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No: YCJJ20230682).

Citation

Wu, R., Zhao, X., Li, Z. and Xie, Y. (2024), "The role of employee personality in employee satisfaction and turnover: insights from online employee reviews", Personnel Review, Vol. 53 No. 7, pp. 1581-1611. https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-04-2023-0309

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2024, Emerald Publishing Limited

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