ABSTRACT

The main objective of the study was to ascertain the effect of personality on organizational performance in selected manufacturing organizations in Aba, Abia State of Nigeria. Specifically, the objectives were to; ascertain the effect of extroversion on organizational performance; examine the effect of agreeableness on organizational effectiveness; determine the effect of conscientiousness on organizational productivity; examine the effect of neuroticism on organizational growth; and to ascertain the effect of openness to experience on organizational efficiency. The researcher adopted the survey research design. The population of the study covered all the staff of the selected manufacturing organizations in Aba, Abia State. The selected manufacturing organizations covered in the study were PZ Cussons, Aba, Nigerian Breweries Plc, Aba, and Vita Foam Plc, Aba. From records made available to the researcher, the combined staff strength of these three manufacturing organizations was 1296. The Bowley’s proportional allocation formula was used to obtain a combined sample size of 306. Data collected for the study were analyzed based on the stated objectives and hypotheses of the study. All objectives and stated hypotheses were analyzed and tested with simple regression model. All analyses were done through the use of the SPSS software package version 20.0. Findings revealed a positive and significant effect of extroversion on organizational performance. This indicates that an increase in extroversion in employees results to a corresponding increase in organizational performance. Regression result revealed that agreeableness as a personality trait exerts significant and positive effect on organizational performance. This implies that the possession of the trait of agreeableness by employees results to an increase in organizational performance. Regression result in the study also revealed that conscientiousness exerts significant and positive impact on organizational performance. The implication is that an increase in conscientiousness results to an increase in organizational performance. Thus, when employees possess more conscientiousness, it results to high organizational performance and vice versa. The study recommended that performance appraisal should be designed in with the organizations in such a way that it incorporates employees’ traits. This will help objectives sets to be easily achievable due to the fact that job would be rightly assigned and executed. Again, this will help the Human Resource Department draw out training and development programmes that will ensure effective and efficient use of resources. Furthermore, the managements of the studied organizations need to ensure that recruitment of the right job candidates should be based on skills and experience. In fact, selecting the wrong candidates will not only influence the overall organizational performance but also evaluation of organizational performance.