Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop the Big-Five personality test and to investigate the relationships between the Big-Five personality dimensions(Extraversion, Emotional Stability, Agreeableness. Conscientiousness, and Intellect) and performance criteria in the newcomer training setting. The Big-Five personality test which composed of 119 statements was developed through item analysis and factor analysis using 1,187 job incumbents in a large company. This test was administered to 3,593 trainees in the training center and the personality test scores were obtained. Then, several performance criteria regarding their training proficiency were also obtained. Correlation analysis was conducted to examine the relationships between the five personality dimensions and performance criteria. Results indicated that Extraversion, Emotional Stability, and Conscientiousness showed statistically significant relations with the composite score derived from all of the performance criteria. But the magnitude of correlation coefficients was small except Extraversion. Extraversion, Emotional Stability, and Intellect were related with the sum of subjective ratings by observers regarding creativity, responsibility, active disposition, judging ability, leadership, and cooperation. Overall, while Extraversion dimension was related to most of the performance criteria, Agreeableness dimension was related to least of the performance criteria. Multiple regression analysis using the Big-Five factors as the independent variables revealed very same results to those of correlation analysis. Based on these results, the usability of the Big-Five personality test for the purpose of predicting job performance in the industrial setting, the limitations of this study, and the future research agenda in this area were discussed.