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The purpose of this paper is to present a new method for benchmarking, which allows the construction of scales of competitiveness for the comparison of products using Item Response Theory (IRT).

Theoretically, the method combines classic benchmarking process steps with IRT steps and demonstrates through mathematical models how this technique can measure the competitiveness of products by means of a latent trait.

The IRT method uses the theories of psychometrics to measure the competitiveness of products through qualitative and quantitative interpretation of the tangible and intangible characteristics of those products. To demonstrate the application of the developed method, the items were constructed for teaching staff.

The application of the developed method will increase the accuracy of assessments of the competitiveness of a product because this method uses a mathematical model of the IRT to evaluate the characteristics product that reflect market competitiveness. Items must be selected based on theories relevant to the product and/or expert opinion or customers.

The applicability of the method results in the construction of a scale in which items identify good practice with greater difficulty because they are represented in the same units that index competitiveness. Thus, managers of companies obtain knowledge about their products and the market, which allows them to assess their performance against their competitors and to make decisions regarding the continuous improvement of their production process and expansion of product characteristics.

This work presents a new method for benchmarking using a quantitative technique that enables measurement of the latent trait of “competitiveness” through robust mathematical models.

Earlier studies have shown that individuals with business education and the personality traits listed in the big-five model are more inclined to pursue entrepreneurial activities. The Big-Five Model of personality is one of the prominent taxonomies, which highlights five fundamental human's traits. However, the big-five model does not cover all baseline personality features essential for pursuing an entrepreneurial career. Drawing on the trait-factor theory of career choice, this study discusses action-oriented traits as a driving force for individuals to pursue entrepreneurship as a foremost career choice in the context of developing economies.

Data of 599 recent graduates, who just completed their university degrees and about to join the job market, were collected through surveys and analyzed after achieving the model-fit.

Results highlighted that three action-oriented traits (innovativeness, risk-taking and competitiveness) aspire individuals to pursue entrepreneurial careers. In addition, a multi-group analysis of business vs. non-business educational backgrounds revealed that business related education is not the only strong precursor leading to the pursuit of an entrepreneurial career.

This study draws attention to the belief of higher educational consultants, institutes and policymakers that investment in certain trait development can increase the number of new entrepreneurs in an economy.

This study empirically tests the impact of the Dark Triad personality traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy) and co-worker competitiveness on knowledge sabotage.

A model was constructed and tested by means of Partial Least Squares with data from 150 participants recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.

The individual personality traits of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy are significant predictors of individual knowledge sabotage behavior, whereas co-worker Machiavellianism and psychopathy trigger co-worker knowledge sabotage. Out of the three Dark Triad traits, individual and co-worker psychopathy emerged as the strongest knowledge sabotage predictor. Co-worker competitiveness has a positive effect on co-workers’ knowledge sabotage behavior. There is a relatively strong relationship between co-worker and individual knowledge sabotage which suggests that knowledge sabotage is a form of contagious workplace behavior. Individuals underestimate their negative behavior and traits and/or overestimate those of their fellow co-workers.

Managers should realize that the Dark Triad personality traits could predispose certain individuals to engage in extremely harmful counterproductive knowledge behavior. They need to ensure that individuals with these traits are not hired or are identified during their probation periods. It is recommended that organizations include knowledge sabotage measures in their periodic employee surveys. Organizations should help their employees objectively re-evaluate their own traits and knowledge behavior as well as those of their colleagues to ensure that their reciprocating knowledge behavior is more aligned with the reality in their organization.

This study offers a reliable and valid quantitative survey instrument to measure the presence of knowledge sabotage.

Competitiveness is an individual difference variable that incorporates factors generally associated with the desire to excel in comparison to others and the enjoyment of competition. There is still much debate on whether it is helpful or harmful, which may stem from the scattered ways in which it is studied. Thereby, this study aims to properly synthesize the literature concerning the prevailing correlates, underlying theory and frequent applications of competitiveness and to set forth an outline of domains in need of further research and exploration.

The authors do so by using two methods of analysis on a representative sample of 546 peer-reviewed publications.

The authors find that competitiveness research has and will continue to grow expeditiously, but its complexity and cloudiness have not yet been attenuated.

The study uncovers opportunities for pertinent future research on competitiveness to grow more productively and collaboratively by highlighting salient works and identifying the fragmentations that have led the literature into a state of disarray.

Several hundred German parents completed a questionnaire to assess their attitudes towards pocket money and economic socialisation. In addition trait competitiveness and occupational stress were measured. Demographic variables were less predictive of competitiveness compared to psychological/attitudinal factors. The more competitive oriented parents displayed a distinct monetary attitude profile: they were less liberal, more structured and budget‐oriented. They used money significantly more as a reinforcer for educational purposes, e.g. educational or scholarly success, and as an instrument to teach autonomy. Subjectively perceived occupational stress was determined by diverse socio‐demographic variables, although the stress‐demographic relationship was moderated by gender. Older fathers and men from a poor social‐economic background (as children) tended to show greater job‐related stress. Conversely, mothers from “superior” SES, with more siblings, and fewer children of their own, reported more occupational stress.

Gamification is a booming motivational approach in information systems. Leaderboards play a key role in gamification; however, there are mixed findings regarding the heterogeneous motivational impacts of leaderboard positions. This study aims to clarify the motivational effects of high and low leaderboard positions by assembling diverse behavioral measures and self-reports. The measures used in this study shed a light on the quantitative and qualitative dynamics of motivation facilitated by leaderboard positions. The authors inspect motivation in relation to satisfaction and frustration of competence need.

The authors conducted an online experiment set in a crowdsourcing context, asking the participants to compete in an image tagging game. Participants' leaderboard positions were manipulated to be either high or low for five consecutive rounds. The number of clicks, tags, duration of tagging and persistence on the task were measured as indicators of motivation.

High ranks on leaderboards induced complacent behaviors choosing easy ways to maintain their positions, while low ranks led the participants to stick to the right process of the task with intensified motivation round after round. However, neither of the motivations seemed to be of intrinsic nature.

The present study provides conclusive evidence on the varying motivational impact of leaderboard positions. The authors also demonstrate how the “needs-as-motive” model (Sheldon and Gunz, 2009) applies to gamification. Its implications in self-determination theory and gamification literature are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of personality traits on the perception of key message characteristics in road safety advertising.

The advertisement uses visual imagery and imagery methods to examine key message characteristics. An online survey questionnaire was used to obtain responses of 947 driver perceptions with various personality traits; and the data are explored using multiple linear-regressions.

The findings of the research indicate the importance of using key message characteristics based upon established scientific theory to developing messages, more particularly in road safety and other social marketing campaigns. The role of personality traits and its relevance also appear to be of primary importance and can be used to segment the market; guide message designs and development, as different personality traits are found to be significant for different message characteristics.

This research varies from preceding efforts as it examines the influence of personality traits on drivers’ perceptions of messages using established scientific theory, and bridging the gap in the research between two main paths of research with reference to fear-based messages: the process that influences an individual response to key messages; and the influences of personality trait differences on message perceptions.

This study extends the knowledge in several essential areas and offers a set of recommendations to assist marketers in developing effective message strategies and segmentation based on personality traits. Besides advancing theory, this study enhances the understanding of how to develop more effective road safety messages that will save lives and prevent injuries.

The purpose of this paper is to study the role of individual differences in employees’ work engagement. More specifically, the paper explains how self-efficacy, proactive personality and conscientious traits determine work engagement.

A quantitative approach was used. Data for this study were collected from a manufacturing company via questionnaires. Participants were selected by classified sampling method and 305 questionnaires distributed among participants. In total, 263 respondents completed the questionnaires.

The findings show that all individual traits influence employees’ work engagement. But, the extent of their influence is not equal. Results of this study showed that various individual differences have different capacities for engaging employees. People who have more general self-efficacy are more likely to experience and report work engagement. Employees with conscientiousness trait have capacity to be engaged as well but to a lesser extent.

This study is a quantitative study. Data are collected from the automotive manufacturing industry. All respondents were technical experts with at least BA or BS degrees. This sample creates limitations in generalizing of the findings to broader and more representative populations. A more extensive study covering other industries and other traits is necessary to explore the relationships studied here.

This study identifies various management strategies that could be used to increase employee work engagement. These strategies could be useful for managers in other organizational settings as well.

There is an extensive body of literature in work engagement. Most of the research has been done in a framework of job demands-resources model. But this study was the first to study the effect of individual differences on work engagement in Iran.

Drawing on socioanalytic theory, this paper aims to explore whether a moderation mediation model can describe the mechanism linking salesperson social reputation (perceived stability and plasticity) and performance (customer share of wallet) in relationship marketing. The mediator is the salesperson’s overall equity, and the moderator is the salesperson-customer congruence.

A structured questionnaire was used to obtain data from 233 customers, served by 44 personal finance advisors at five banking agencies in Canada.

A multilevel approach showed that both perceived stability and perceived plasticity predict salesperson equity and performance. In addition, the empirical results indicated that the relationship between perceived stability and salesperson performance is partially mediated by salesperson overall equity. However, equity fully mediated the relationship between perceived plasticity and salesperson performance. Finally, the salesperson-customer congruence moderated the effect of both perceived stability and plastic on the salesperson overall equity.

This research suggests that the moderation mediation model enables predicting the relationship between the perceived personality and performance. From a managerial perspective, the author encourages sales managers to pay attention to salespersons’ equity development as well as their performance. Notably, the author suggests that sales managers support and monitor salespeople with regard to improving their social status as well as their social popularity in their interactions with customers.

Previous research in sales force literature focuses on salespersons’ self-personality to predict sales performance. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to show it is important to consider the perceived personality of a salesperson in predicting their performance. This study is also the first to introduce the salesperson reputation concept and its dimensions (perceived stability and plasticity).

Social comparison literature has long established that drawing comparisons facilitates competitive motivation. Yet, the literature has neglected how the actor may simultaneously become the target of comparison, which can likewise increase competitive motivation. Therefore, competitive motivation increases not only because coacting competitors draw social comparisons but also because they are simultaneously the target of other's social comparison. In this chapter, we build a dual process framework to explain how comparing and being compared each facilitate competitive motivation. We also posit that these processes – comparing and being compared, respectively – are bidirectional and reciprocal, as each process can incite the other. Finally, we discuss the circumstances under which comparing and being compared combine additively versus interactively to drive competitive motivation. Our theoretical framework brings together the disparate literatures on social comparison and evaluation apprehension under one unified theory of competitive motivation, and proposes new directions for competition research.