The Role of Character Strengths for Task Performance, Job Dedication, Interpersonal Facilitation, and Organizational Support

Abstract

It was hypothesized that character strengths relate to job performance. Both constructs were investigated with respect to their currently known dimensions (i.e., 24 character strengths; job performance: task performance, job dedication, interpersonal facilitation, organizational support) to get a comprehensive overview of their co-occurrence. Two samples, 318 and 108 employees, respectively, filled in measures assessing character strengths as traits and their usefulness at work, and the job performance dimensions. For Sample 2, also supervisors judged the employees’ job performance. Based on this set of two samples we show replicable associations between character strengths and job performance (self-reports and supervisory ratings). Furthermore, the number of individual strengths beneficial at work was related to job performance. These promising findings open a new field for research on human performance.

Notes

2. ¹Sometimes a further dimension of job performance is discussed in literature, namely, counterproductive behavior, which has a negative value for the organizational effectiveness (e.g., Viswesvaran & Ones, 2000). However, character strengths are classified as positive traits (Peterson & Seligman, 2004) and are, thus, more likely related to positive behavior such as task and contextual performance. Therefore, it was decided not to investigate counterproductive behavior in the present research.

3. ²The r_wg by James et al. (1984) has been criticized. For example, the assumption of the uniform null distribution (without bias; answering options have the same probability to be selected due to random response pattern) as the referring distribution for random answers was questioned (e.g., Brown & Hauenstein, 2005; Kotzlowski & Hattrup, 1992; LeBreton et al., 2003). A (moderately) skewed null distribution was suggested to take into account that effects of vocational training and personnel selection lead to an upward bias in performance ratings (LeBreton et al., 2003). Therefore, we utilized the moderately skewed null distribution (with bias referring to effects of vocational training and personnel selection, which lead to an upward bias) as a lower bound estimate of agreement and the uniform null distribution as the upper bound estimate of agreement (also cf. Kotzlowski & Hattrup, 1992).

4. ³Peterson and Seligman (2004) highlighted that an individual of good character may display one or two strengths within a group of strengths (e.g., civic strengths) and that one individual will rarely (if ever) display all strengths within a group of strengths. Consequently, factor analyses might not be the method of choice to test the original classification of strengths. Nevertheless, the internal structure of the VIA-IS is of interest to see which character strengths co-occur within individuals.

5. ⁴Also the moderately skewed null distribution (with bias referring to effects of vocational training and personnel selection which lead to an upward bias) was utilized (see LeBreton et al., 2003). This leads to the lower bound estimates of agreement, whereas the uniform null distribution (without bias; answering options have the same probability to be selected due to random response pattern) leads the upper bound estimates of agreement (Kotzlowski & Hattrup, 1992). Medians of lower bound interrater agreement were .97, .89, .90, and .96 for task performance, job dedication, interpersonal facilitation, and organizational support, respectively, indicating a strong to very strong agreement (cf. LeBreton & Senter, 2008).

6. ⁵Also partial correlations between the character strengths and the dimensions of job performance were computed controlling for the corresponding ratings in the UCSWS. This was done as the ratings in the corresponding strengths in the VIA-IS and the UCSWS were slightly related to each other (i.e., Mdn = .16 and .28 in Sample 1 and Sample 2, respectively). Results remained the same as correlation coefficients hardly changed (Mdn change of absolute coefficients = .02. .03, and .02 in Sample 1 and in Sample 2 for self- and supervisor-rated performance, respectively). Of interest, UCSWS ratings did not consistently relate to the dimensions of job performance when the VIA-IS scores were controlled for (except social intelligence and task performance; perspective and hope with organizational support). This also highlighted the role of character strengths as positive traits for job performance.

7. ⁶As it is the case for personality assessment in general, character strengths as personality traits are theoretical constructs and it is not possible to possess them technically speaking. Nevertheless, one can endorse statements relating to the character strengths and the information on this endorsement is used here as a proxy/operationalization for actual behaviors that represent the traits of interest.