Title: Newcomers' personality traits: influence on adjustment

Authors: Amr A. Swid

Addresses: School of Management, New York Institute of Technology, Campus 851, Road 3828 Block 338, Adliya, Bahrain

Abstract: During the early stages of employment, newcomers learn about the new organisation. First impressions are extremely important in determining the course of subsequent attitudes and behaviour. Recently, considerable progress has been made toward understanding the adjustment process; however, newcomer research has been conducted independently of individual newcomer personality differences. The present research examines multiple antecedents, including the Big Five personality traits of newcomers and immediate outcomes of the process of newcomer adjustment. A three-wave longitudinal study of 439 newcomers in seven organisations examined Big Five personality traits as antecedents of proximal adjustment indicators. The results suggest that conscientiousness is positively related to proximal adjustment indicators (task performance, group integration and apolitical knowledge); openness to experience is related to task performance; and group integration is independently related to agreeableness and extroversion. Overall, the results suggest that the Big Five are one of the key determinants of early entry newcomer adjustment.

Keywords: newcomer adjustment; personality traits; personality adjustment; individual differences; new employees; task performance; group integration; apolitical knowledge.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBHR.2010.037635

International Journal of Behavioural and Healthcare Research, 2010 Vol.2 No.2, pp.136 - 153

Published online: 20 Dec 2010 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article