Relationship between personality and work engagement

: the role of individual traits and international experience

Abstract

To strive in today’s challenging, fast-paced and constantly changing environment,organizations need to put employees at the core of their business, as people are a fundamentalasset and can either boost or damage a company. It is in this line of thought that the concept ofWork Engagement has been developing and gaining more attention, since engaged employeesexhibit an effective and energetic connection with their work which makes them more resilient,involved and absorbed in their tasks. This empirical study aims at understanding how theindividual’s dispositional traits, conceptualized in the Big Five model – Extraversion,Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness to Experience - impact WorkEngagement, in particular within the Portuguese context. Moreover, it also frames the conceptof International Experience as a moderator variable between the positive relationship ofOpenness to Experience and Work Engagement.Firstly, the results indicate that some of the individual traits of the Big Five model have impacton Work Engagement, namely, Extraversion, Conscientiousness and Openness to Experiencehave a positive relation while Neuroticism has a negative relation. Secondly, it proves thepositive impact of International Experience on Openness to Experience but it does not validatethe extension of that relationship with Work Engagement.

Date of Award	26 Jul 2017
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Maria Teresa Vieira de Oliveira (Supervisor)