The relationship among personality traits, job design characteristics and organizational commitment: An empirical study of organizations in China

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to identify antecedents that would predict organizational commitment. One category of predictor was the “Big Five” personality traits (extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism and openness) and the other category included job design characteristics (skill variety, task identity, task significance, task autonomy, and task feedback). This research also investigated the association that demographic variables (job title, job tenure, organization tenure, age, gender and education) had with all major variables. A survey was completed by 142 participants of five Chinese organizations in Beijing, from the health/medical, banking, insurance, international business, and construction sectors. Agreeableness, openness and all job design characteristics were significantly correlated with affective commitment, whereas extraversion and agreeableness, neuroticism were related to continuance commitment. Regression analyses showed that agreeableness and openness were salient predictors of affective commitment. Agreeableness and neuroticism contributed significantly to continuance commitment. The conclusions are discussed in relation to their practical implications for organizations, and researchers, and the need for future research. The major implications from this research are that managers in organizations need to enrich employees’ job content to enhance their affective commitment, and keep in mind the links between some personality traits and continuance commitment. This study encourages future research to focus on doing more longitudinal cross-cultural studies in order to assess the generalizability of previous research findings.