The Moderating Effects of Job Satisfaction on the Relationship between Personality Traits and Customer-oriented Behavior in the Malaysian Health Tourism Industry

This paper aims to analyze the relationship between personality traits, customer-oriented behavior and job satisfaction. Focusing on the moderating role of job satisfaction in enhancing customer oriented behavior, the research was set in the context of Malaysian health tourism industry. The respondents consisted of nurses in health tourism hospitals in Malaysia. A quantitative cross sectional survey method was adopted, coupled with factor analysis and hierarchical regression analysis to analyze the collected data. The findings of this study revealed that extraversion and agreeableness were positively and significantly related to customer-oriented behaviour. Further, job satisfaction was found to be a quasi-moderator that interacted with extraversion to predict customer-oriented behavior. The findings of this research facilitate health tourism organizations to identify, recruit and train nurses who possess the right personality traits, structure the values of the organization and nurture a conducive work environment in order to maximize nurses’ job satisfaction that effectively improves their behavior towards customers and ultimately the performance of the firms.