Personality, equity sensitivity, and discretionary workplace behavior

Understanding equity sensitivity through the lens of personality: a review of associations and underlying nature

Purpose

This study aims to clarify the ambiguous nature of equity sensitivity and understand the associations between equity perceptions and the personality domain in organizational behaviour.

Design/methodology/approach

The study reviews 56 articles that rendered associations between different HEXACO personality domains and equity sensitivity and proposed a possibility of equity sensitivity being a situation-activated trait.

Findings

The domains of Honesty-humility, Conscientiousness and Agreeableness are predominantly associated with equity sensitivity. The domain of Emotionality is also associated but not as significant as the aforementioned domains. Unexpectedly, Extraversion, the domain of social interactions, and Openness to experience showed little to no associations. The transient nature of equity sensitivity has been proposed that postulates that such nature might help predict an individual’s personality characteristics in a given context.

Originality/value

This review is one of the first, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to describe the associations between equity sensitivity and the HEXACO personality domains. Additionally, the situational nature of equity sensitivity and relationship with the personality traits is proposed.

Personality Traits Affecting Opinion Leadership Propensity in Social Media: An Empirical Examination in Saudi Arabia

Few studies have examined the personality traits that may predict opinion leadership behavior in social media. This study aims to examine the personality traits of individuals who use social media platforms and engage in social networking in Saudi Arabia. This study investigates the extent to which innovativeness, competence in interpersonal relationships, and extraversion affect the opinion leadership propensity in social media. The data were collected via an online structured questionnaire which was completed by a sample of 321 social media users. The results of this study show that people with a high level of innovativeness and interpersonal relationship competency are more likely to be opinion leaders on social media. However, the personality trait of extraversion does not affect the propensity to be an opinion leader. The results indicate that the effect of innovativeness on opinion leadership propensity is lower for Generation Y than Generation X.

Impact of basic psychological needs on organizational justice and helping behavior: a self-determination perspective

Purpose

Integrating the social exchange perspective of helping behavior with self-determination theory (SDT), this study seeks to examine the impact of employees' psychological needs on perceived organizational justice and the impact of perceived organizational justice on employees' helping behavior.

Design/methodology/approach

Cross-sectional and cross-organizational data were obtained from 177 full-time employees employed in 12 small- and medium-sized oil and gas service companies. A partial least squares approach using SmartPLS was employed to test the hypotheses.

Findings

Results illustrate that the psychological need for competence and need for autonomy are positively related to perceived distributive and procedural justice, respectively. Moreover, perceived distributive and procedural justice are related to helping behavior. Furthermore, perceived distributive justice fully mediates the relationship between the psychological need for competence and helping behavior, whereas perceived procedural justice partially mediates the relationship between the psychological need for autonomy and helping behavior.

Originality/value

From a theoretical standpoint, this study offers some theoretical explanations for how the basic psychological needs identified by SDT activate employees' perceived organizational justice. Practically, this study offers several managerial recommendations that help managers manage helping behavior in the organization effectively.