Introducing Personality Psychology in Business: Insights & Implications from a Textual Analysis

Personality psychology is well established in business and organization theory and praxis, so it would seem to require no introduction. Whereas personality psychology is established in these areas, there is benefit from interrogating how it has been situated. A textual analysis of the introduction section of the top 50 most-relevant, academic papers identified using the keywords personality and business provided a basis for generating insights and implications as to how personality psychology has been “introduced” within business contexts, as examined academically. This mixed-methods, textual analysis produced words of merit, bigrams of merit, and AFINN-based sentiment scores. Among the results, the words stress and conflict, and the bigrams of unintended consequences and whistle blowing stood out as topics of focus. The results suggest no statistically significant difference in sentiment between articles frequently referencing the business-related terms and those frequently referencing students, with each group having a slightly positive, average sentiment. Combining the bigrams and words of merit with the sentiment analysis facilitated the identification of common themes that informed understanding and suggested action. These insights and implications suggest a need for further collaboration in this area with a focus on enacting positive change to organizational practices.