Cultural Hybrid Personalities? Clustering Nations According to the Big Five Personality Traits
Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) Research Paper No. 009
26 Pages Posted: 23 Nov 2012
Date Written: November 22, 2012
Abstract
While the current motto when leading employees from different cultures is that one size does not fit all, researchers have of late indicated that globalization promotes the interaction and thus adaptation of cultures to a global culture. We therefore explore the key question whether culturally hybrid personalities have emerged referring to the big five personality traits (extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience) collected among the working population (in the context of the International Social Survey Program). We propose a clustering of nations based on personality traits and analyze whether these so called employee motivation dispositional drivers can be summarized into the cultural clusters developed in past research. Our results indicate that there are still seven clusters of different personalities rather than one top layer of global personality or culture; nonetheless, new 'culturally hybrid' personality clusters have emerged, especially among the European cultures.
Keywords: culture, GLOBE, Hofstede, big five personality traits, cluster analyses, personality cluster, ISSP
JEL Classification: M00
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation