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In this study, we use the well-researched and validated Big Five model of personality traits to examine accounting students’ career interests in auditing. Using the person-job fit literature as a springboard for our study, we investigate the influence of accounting students’ personality traits on their career interests in auditing using a research survey. We uncover a general “trait gap” (i.e., lack of fit) between accounting students’ own personality traits and their perceptions of the ideal auditor, which presents implications for workplace readiness. Additionally, analysis focusing on students who particularly want to work in auditing indicates that those with more auditing work experience are more likely to identify auditing as their preferred job. Furthermore, results indicate that accounting students higher on openness to experience tend to view auditing jobs as more desirable. Finally, accounting students who prefer the auditing career path perceive the ideal auditor as extroverted, agreeable, and open to experience. We extend prior findings in the accounting education literature surrounding personality traits and their impact on student career choices. Because advising students for a career path suiting their traits and talents is important for each student and the accounting profession, our study’s insights into the “matching process” add value to career advising.

From an online survey of 114 participating accountants at staff, senior staff, and supervisor levels from a top-100 U.S. accounting firm, we investigate the effects of the Big Five personality traits (Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Openness) on the ethical decision-making process of accountants. Within the framework of Rest’s (1986) Four-Component Model of Ethical Behavior, we focus on Component III, the formation of an intention to act upon one’s best ethical judgment. Based on the limited extant literature on the connection between personality and ethical behavior, we expect that accountants high in Conscientiousness and Openness will tend to form an intention to act ethically despite pressure in an ethical dilemma. We develop more tentative hypotheses about the remaining three factors. Controlling for age, gender, education, sole earning status, and experience, we find clear positive statistical effects of only Conscientiousness and Openness. These findings have implications for the human resource departments of accounting firms, as well as contributing to a basic understanding of the relationships between Big Five personality factors and ethical intention.

Not all pressured, greedy, and opportunistic individuals actually commit white-collar crime. So what exactly is the common denominator for individuals to commit white-collar crime? This study investigates the propensity of an individual to commit white-collar crime and advances personality as an explanatory factor. Questionnaire survey data is collected from 357 undergraduate accounting students in a later year accounting course at a large university in Australia. Personality is measured using the Big Five Inventory. Support is provided for the view that individuals scoring lower in agreeableness and lower in conscientiousness have a higher propensity to commit white-collar crime. While no significant main effect associations emerged for extraversion, neuroticism, or openness to experience, inspection of individual parameter estimates revealed a significant negative association between neuroticism and propensity to commit white-collar crime but only in certain circumstances.

This chapter provides a contemporary view of state-of-the science research and thinking done in the areas of selection and classification. It takes as a starting point the observation that the world of work is undergoing important changes that are likely to result in different occupational and organizational structures. In this context, we review recent research on criteria, especially models of job performance, followed by sections on predictors, including ability, personality, vocational interests, biodata, and situational judgment tests. The paper also discusses person-organization fit models, as alternatives or complements to the traditional person-job fit paradigm.

Destination brand personality has been considered as an emotional relationship between a branded destination and its visitors (Ekinci, 2003). Previous studies exclusively focused on the match between visitor’s personality and destination personality (Sirgy & Su, 2000; Usakli & Baloglu, 2011). However, there is a lack of investigation centered on tourism industry professionals (TIPs). This chapter is to assess the congruity between TIPs’ self-assessed personality, their perceived brand personality of Macau as a destination as well as the brand personality of their tourism/hospitality-related organizations. Findings of this study reveal that TIPs’ perceived Big Five dimensions of self, Macau, and organization tend to match with each other in certain dimensions. Neither their own nor their organizations’ Big Five dimensions “Openness” and “Conscientiousness” matches their perceived brand personality of Macau. This chapter provides empirical evidence which may suggest to Macau policy makers to further develop branding strategies through strengthening its brand personalities.

This study tests the influence of Big Five Personality Traits (BFPTs) and demographic factors on Facebook behavior of Posting, Feature Usage, and Making Friends in India, home to the highest number of Facebook users in the world. Gen-Z is the demographic most involved in social media, thus this age group’s behavior can be most accurately gauged from Facebook habits and so it forms the basis of this study. Facebook behavior identified in this study was the outcome of an elicitation study conducted among university students. The sample survey consisted of 290 Facebook users aged between 17 and 24 years. The chapter uses factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) for data analysis. Results revealed that extroverts and those open to experiences would post more. Meanwhile, the conscientious were less inclined to use features such as emoticons while those more agreeable embraced them. Women and those more neurotic would not befriend strangers. Also, posting and feature usage increased with user age. Study results highlight the potential of analyzing Facebook behavior to gauge personalities, which could benefit recruiters and marketers. Academically, this is the first study related to India where a scale for Facebook behavior is developed (namely Posting, Feature Usage, and Making Friends) and then validated for future research work.

Published studies of the relationships between personality, affect, and organizational change have been overwhelmingly quantitative, while clinical and psychodynamic approaches have seldom dealt with the context of organizational change. We used semistructured interviews to explore the “middle ground”, by researching how participants in change believed aspects of their personalities contributed to their responses, particularly on an affective level. We found that traits such as openness to experience, resilience, pragmatism, change self-efficacy, and locus of control influenced participants' perceptions of how they reacted to organizational change. The findings point to the important role that qualitative research into personality can play in improving understanding of emotional responses to organizational change.

Leaders’ emotional intelligence (EI), personality, and empowering behavior have been heavily studied in the organizational behavior literature. To date, the majority of research on EI and personality has shown their significant influence on personal outcomes. It has also been suggested that empowerment is a fundamental psychological mechanism underlying follower outcomes. Nevertheless, little attention has been paid to the effect of team leaders’ EI and personality on team outcomes and the potential mediating effect of team leaders’ empowering behavior. In this study, we developed theoretical rationale and empirically tested the effect of team leaders’ EI and personality on team climate and the mediating role that team leaders’ empowering behavior plays in this relationship. The results supported most of our hypothesized relationships, that is, the positive effects of team leaders’ EI and agreeableness on team climate were mediated by team leaders’ empowering behavior, whereas team leaders’ openness to new experience was not related to empowering behavior and team climate. Finally, theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

We argue that entrepreneurship research should use meta-analysis to integrate the findings of the field. A meta-analytical approach has several advantages as compared with narrative reviews: First, narrative reviews are likely to bias empirical evidence because they are limited by the information-processing capacities of the reviewers (Tett, Jackson, & Rothstein, 1991). This is often a downward bias leading to the conclusion of little positive knowledge in the field. For example, frequency counts of significant results ignore sampling errors of individual studies, reliability problems of instruments, range restrictions of samples, dichotomization of continuous variables, imperfect construct validity, and extraneous factors (Hunter & Schmidt, 2004). These issues usually result in a higher incidence of Type II errors (i.e., rejecting the hypothesis wrongly). Thus, narrative reviews are more likely to lead to the conclusion that there are no relationships between independent and dependent variables in entrepreneurship when in fact they are (Hunter & Schmidt, 1990; Tett et al., 1991). Second, meta-analysis accumulates studies based on a set of explicit decision rules and, therefore, is less biased by subjective perceptions of the reviewer than narrative reviews. Meta-analyses require judgments as well, e.g., when defining the area of the study or coding moderator variables. However, the decisions are public and open to criticism and replication by other scientists (Johnson & Eagly, 2000). Third, meta-analysis is based on many studies and, thus, avoids the influence of single studies. Fourth, meta-analysis controls for sampling error variance and, thus, controls for power deficits of individual studies (Hunter & Schmidt, 2004). For example, the Brockhaus and Nord (1979) study is frequently cited in the entrepreneurship literature for providing evidence that there is no relationship of personality characteristics with entrepreneurship. However, this study is based on a small sample of 31 business owners and therefore, has serious statistical power problems. Noteworthy, the effect sizes of small samples are less precise in estimating a population value than effect sizes of larger samples. Fifth, meta-analyses can correct many errors of individual studies (Hunter & Schmidt, 2004). Since meta-analyses estimate population correlations between given variables, it is important to correct for errors of studies (e.g., unreliability, range restriction, and sampling error) to achieve unbiased estimates. Sixth, meta-analysis allows an assessment of the magnitude of relationships and, thus, provides more precise and often comparable assessments of the validity of concepts. Thus, meta-analyses support the assessment of the practical significance of findings. Seventh, meta-analysis tests for variations in relationships across studies and, therefore, allows an assessment of the generalizeability of effects. If the size of reported relationships varies considerably between different studies, there will be context conditions that account for these variations. These context conditions are moderators that affect the size of relationships. The moderators may include study characteristics, method moderators, and theoretical moderators. Thus, meta-analyses also help to identify areas for new studies. Finally, meta-analysis techniques allow to test more than one independent and/or moderator variable by using methods based on regression analysis (Lipsey & Wilson, 2001). Using such procedures allows to estimate the independent contribution of variables on results, to control for methodological variables, and to test the interactions between moderator variables.