Title: Conscientiousness personality trait defines the competent Greek project manager

Authors: Georgios N. Aretoulis; Jason B. Papathanasiou; Konstantinos Zapounidis; Aikaterini A. Seridou

Addresses: Department of Construction Equipment and Management, School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Campus, Thessaloniki, Greece ' University of Macedonia, Egnatias 156, 54636, Thessaloniki, Greece ' School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Campus, Thessaloniki, Greece ' Judicial and Legal Support Department, Taxation of S.A. Enterprises, Greek Ministry of Finance, Thessaloniki, Greece

Abstract: Project managers' (PMs) performance greatly affect their construction companies' profitability. Forty-seven required attributes of a PM were prioritised through a structured questionnaire survey. These attributes were assigned to groups with the aid of the 'big five personality traits' and identified as selection criteria. Simos method was implemented to determine the weights of the criteria. Seven classifications were proposed, including: 'conscientiousness', 'cognitive abilities', 'extraversion', 'agreeableness', 'capabilities', 'openness' and 'other qualifications'. The 'conscientiousness' personality trait received most of the identified attributes. Seven hypothetical PM profiles were created that directly corresponded to each of the proposed classifications. These seven profiles were ranked using PROMETHEE multi-criteria methodology. The resulting ranking from the most to the less competent one is: conscientiousness, cognitive abilities, extraversion, agreeableness, capabilities, openness and other qualifications.

Keywords: project manager performance; competencies; Simos method; PROMETHEE; multicriteria decision making; MCDM; Big Five personality traits; conscientiousness; Greece; project management; cognitive abilities; extraversion; agreeableness; capabilities; openness.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBPM.2017.084857

International Journal of Business Performance Management, 2017 Vol.18 No.3, pp.350 - 380

Received: 22 Dec 2015
Accepted: 22 May 2016

Published online: 01 Jul 2017 *

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