IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0131115.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Openness to Experience as a Predictor and Outcome of Upward Job Changes into Managerial and Professional Positions

Author

Listed:
  • Christiane Nieß
  • Hannes Zacher

Abstract

In industrial and organizational psychology, there is a long tradition of studying personality as an antecedent of work outcomes. Recently, however, scholars have suggested that personality characteristics may not only predict, but also change due to certain work experiences, a notion that is depicted in the dynamic developmental model (DDM) of personality and work. Upward job changes are an important part of employees’ careers and career success in particular, and we argue that these career transitions can shape personality over time. In this study, we investigate the Big Five personality characteristics as both predictors and outcomes of upward job changes into managerial and professional positions. We tested our hypotheses by applying event history analyses and propensity score matching to a longitudinal dataset collected over five years from employees in Australia. Results indicated that participants’ openness to experience not only predicted, but that changes in openness to experience also followed from upward job changes into managerial and professional positions. Our findings thus provide support for a dynamic perspective on personality characteristics in the context of work and careers.

Suggested Citation

  • Christiane Nieß & Hannes Zacher, 2015. "Openness to Experience as a Predictor and Outcome of Upward Job Changes into Managerial and Professional Positions," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-22, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0131115
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0131115
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0131115
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0131115&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0131115?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rajeev H. Dehejia & Sadek Wahba, 2002. "Propensity Score-Matching Methods For Nonexperimental Causal Studies," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(1), pages 151-161, February.
    2. Mark Wooden & Nicole Watson, 2007. "The HILDA Survey and its Contribution to Economic and Social Research (So Far)," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 83(261), pages 208-231, June.
    3. Jule Specht & Boris Egloff & Stefan C. Schmukle, 2011. "Stability and Change of Personality across the Life Course: The Impact of Age and Major Life Events on Mean-Level and Rank-Order Stability of the Big Five," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 377, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    4. Ham, Roger & Junankar, Pramod N. (Raja) & Wells, Robert, 2009. "Occupational Choice: Personality Matters," IZA Discussion Papers 4105, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bin Ke & Lin Qiu & Tianshu Qu & Evelyn Gay & Sarah Hian May Chan & Jose Yong, 2025. "CEOs’ online personality and their company’s business strategy: openness to experience predicts diversifying merger and acquisition decisions," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 1-19, May.
    2. Iris Kesternich & Bettina Siflinger & James P. Smith & Franziska Valder, 2022. "Relationship Stability: Evidence from Labor and Marriage Markets," CEBI working paper series 22-20, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    3. White, Joshua V. & Harms, P.D. & Borgholthaus, Cameron J. & Tuggle, Christopher S., 2023. "I’m not the executive that I used to be: Understanding causes and consequences of personality change in the upper echelons," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    4. Tamilla Triantoro & Ram Gopal & Raquel Benbunan-Fich & Guido Lang, 2020. "Personality and games: enhancing online surveys through gamification," Information Technology and Management, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 169-178, September.
    5. Tamilla Triantoro & Ram Gopal & Raquel Benbunan-Fich & Guido Lang, 0. "Personality and games: enhancing online surveys through gamification," Information Technology and Management, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-10.
    6. Eisenbarth, Hedwig & Hart, Claire M. & Sedikides, Constantine, 2018. "Do psychopathic traits predict professional success?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 130-139.
    7. Sunday Adekunle Aduloju, 2020. "Personality Traits and Performance of Salespersons among Insurance Companies in Nigeria," Academic Journal of Economic Studies, Faculty of Finance, Banking and Accountancy Bucharest,"Dimitrie Cantemir" Christian University Bucharest, vol. 6(3), pages 127-138, September.
    8. Fernández-Mesa, Anabel & Llopis, Oscar & García-Granero, Ana & Olmos-Peñuela, Julia, 2020. "Enhancing organisational commitment through task significance: the moderating role of openness to experience," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 602-612.
    9. Eva Asselmann & Elke Holst & Jule Specht, 2022. "Longitudinal Bidirectional Associations between Personality and Becoming a Leader," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1167, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    10. Uyuğ Şengün Damlasu & Tuğrul Tuğba, 2023. "Exploring the Relationship between Organizational Cultures, Openness to Experience and Work Engagement," Proceedings of the International Conference on Business Excellence, Sciendo, vol. 17(1), pages 2108-2118, July.
    11. Innocenti, Stefania & Golin, Marta, 2022. "Human capital investment and perceived automation risks: Evidence from 16 countries," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 27-41.
    12. Myriam Ghosn, 2024. "The Moderating Effect of Technostress on the Relationship between Personality Traits and Employee Turnover Intentions," GATR Journals jmmr335, Global Academy of Training and Research (GATR) Enterprise.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Turner, Alex J. & Fichera, Eleonora & Sutton, Matt, 2021. "The effects of in-utero exposure to influenza on mental health and mortality risk throughout the life-course," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    2. Fabiola Saavedra-Caballero & Mónica Ospina Londoño, 2018. "Social Assistance and Informality: Examining the Link in Colombia," Revista de Economía del Rosario, Universidad del Rosario, vol. 21(1), pages 81-120, June.
    3. François Fall & Akim Almouksit, 2016. "The impact of formal financing on small informal enterprises in Comoros," Working Papers hal-01566389, HAL.
    4. Amarendra Sharma, 2019. "Indira Awas Yojana and Housing Adequacy: An Evaluation using Propensity Score Matching," ASARC Working Papers 2019-05, The Australian National University, Australia South Asia Research Centre.
    5. Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Zhao, Jun, 2020. "Doubly robust difference-in-differences estimators," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 219(1), pages 101-122.
    6. Shapiro, Joseph & Trevino, Jorge Moreno, 2004. "Compensatory education for disadvantaged Mexican students : an impact evaluation using propensity score matching," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3334, The World Bank.
    7. Nathalie Greenan & Pierre-Jean Messe, 2018. "Transmission of vocational skills in the second part of careers: the effect of ICT and management changes," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 52(1), pages 1-16, December.
    8. Kube, Roland & von Graevenitz, Kathrine & Löschel, Andreas & Massier, Philipp, 2019. "Do voluntary environmental programs reduce emissions? EMAS in the German manufacturing sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(S1).
    9. Beatrice Rammstedt & Frank M. Spinath & David Richter & Jürgen Schupp, 2013. "Personality Changes in Couples: Partnership Longevity and Personality Congruence in Couples," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 585, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    10. Pedro H. C. Sant'Anna & Xiaojun Song & Qi Xu, 2022. "Covariate distribution balance via propensity scores," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(6), pages 1093-1120, September.
    11. Iacus, Stefano M. & Porro, Giuseppe, 2007. "Missing data imputation, matching and other applications of random recursive partitioning," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 773-789, October.
    12. Anjana Susarla & Anitesh Barua, 2011. "Contracting Efficiency and New Firm Survival in Markets Enabled by Information Technology," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 22(2), pages 306-324, June.
    13. Slottje, Daniel J. & Millimet, Daniel L. & Buchanan, Michael J., 2007. "Econometric analysis of copyrights," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 139(2), pages 303-317, August.
    14. Sourafel Girma & Steve Thompson & Peter Wright, 2006. "International Acquisitions, Domestic Competition and Firm Performance," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(3), pages 335-349.
    15. Dugstad, Anders & Grimsrud, Kristine & Kipperberg, Gorm & Lindhjem, Henrik & Navrud, Ståle, 2020. "Acceptance of wind power development and exposure – Not-in-anybody's-backyard," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    16. Tymon Słoczyński, 2015. "The Oaxaca–Blinder Unexplained Component as a Treatment Effects Estimator," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 77(4), pages 588-604, August.
    17. K. Poehlmann & R. Helm & O. Mauroner & J. Auburger, 2021. "Corporate spin-offs’ success factors: management lessons from a comparative empirical analysis with research-based spin-offs," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 15(6), pages 1767-1796, August.
    18. Hämäläinen, Kari & Ollikainen, Virve, 2004. "Differential Effects of Active Labour Market Programmes in the Early Stages of Young People's Unemployment," Research Reports 115, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    19. Lin, Jenny X. & Lincoln, William F., 2017. "Pirate's treasure," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 235-245.
    20. Yechan Park & Yuya Sasaki, 2024. "Matching $\leq$ Hybrid $\leq$ Difference in Differences," Papers 2411.07952, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2025.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0131115. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.