Beyond the Big Five: New Directions for Personality Research and Practice in Organizations

Abstract

Industrial and organizational personality researchers and practitioners contend with ever-changing requirements of the workplace, and therefore, it is important to reevaluate and innovate with respect to useful organizational research. Much research evidence documents the importance of personality variables in determining behavior and performance in work settings, yet further advances in understanding and predicting work outcomes will depend upon more sophisticated taxonomic structures of personality, better criterion constructs and measurement, and different validation strategies. We describe the logic, strengths, and weaknesses of four taxonomic approaches to the structure of personality—the Five-Factor Model, HEXACO model, circumplex models, and nomological-web clustering—and how each limits or facilitates future developments in theory and practice. We describe how improved measurement and modeling approaches to personality, along with advances in synthetic validation efforts, will enable greater accuracy in our theories, hypotheses, and prediction of work outcomes.