David Yoon Kin Tong and Xue Fa Tong
The purpose of this paper is to explore accountancy students’ pre‐employment decisions as regards pursuing a career after completing an internship. The paper aims to analyse the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore accountancy students’ pre‐employment decisions as regards pursuing a career after completing an internship. The paper aims to analyse the mediating effect of aspects of students’ training experience in firms as direct/indirect factors which influence their career decisions.
Design/methodology/approach
The data were collected from a class after the students had completed internships and analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM). The aim was to establish a model after nesting the second‐order confirmatory analysis of the data. The final stage was to analyse multiple mediating factors, such as the type of company (TOC) and the students’ opinion of the company.
Findings
The interns perceived opportunities for promotion in accounting firms as a long‐term advantage over salary and benefits and as a key criterion for pursuing a career in accountancy. The results indicate that person‐job (P‐J) fit affects students’ career choice more than person‐organisation (P‐O) fit, and that students’ negative opinion of the company environment mediates their intention to pursue a career in the firm after graduation.
Research limitations/implications
The sample size of 121 students was limited by the number of student intake per year and the study was conducted based on per intake. This may limit the generalisability of the results.
Practical implications
The internship coordinators should provide sufficient information to students about the expectations of accounting firms before embarking on them and encourage an open feedback loop when they return from training to improve the internship programmes. Accounting firms, in turn, should prepare comprehensive work schedules that balance out routine administrative work with challenging auditing or tax tasks. These would improve the students’ judgement and lead them to better decisions to pursue the career and reduce turnover.
Originality/value
This study highlights the importance of the transitional career decisions of graduating students as regards pursuing a career in accountancy, and therefore adds to the second cycle of early employment among college graduates in the vocational literature. It also confirms the mediating factors which indirectly affect students’ career decisions and therefore how firms can improve these circumstances for future recruitment.
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Adrian Thomas, Walter C. Buboltz and Christopher S. Winkelspecht
The nature of the relationship between job characteristics, personality, and job satisfaction was investigated. A longstanding debate exists between psychologists that believe…
Abstract
The nature of the relationship between job characteristics, personality, and job satisfaction was investigated. A longstanding debate exists between psychologists that believe structural characteristics of the job are the primary determinants of job satisfaction (Kulik, Oldham, & Hackman, 1987; O'Reilly & Roberts, 1975) and those that believe personal attributes of the worker are most important (Hackman & Lawler, 1971; Pervin, 1968). Information was collected from 163 participants on the Job Characteristics Inventory, the Myers‐Briggs Type Indicator (Form G), and the satisfaction scale of the Job Diagnostic Survey. Hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that job characteristics successfully predicted job satisfaction (average Ra2 =.30). A series of hierarchical regressions indicated that personality had neither a direct effect on satisfaction nor a moderating effect on the job characteristics‐job satisfaction relation. These results indicate that, at least as measured by the MBTI, the characteristics of the individual may be of little importance during job redesign.
The purpose was to find if the relationship between personality and transformational leadership exists, when the appraisals are from leaders themselves and from their subordinates.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose was to find if the relationship between personality and transformational leadership exists, when the appraisals are from leaders themselves and from their subordinates.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach taken was quantitative analyses of 439 leaders and 380 subordinates.
Findings
Results indicated that the relationship between personality and transformational leadership exists. Subordinates' and leaders' ratings did not converge. According to leaders' self‐ratings, the extraverted, intuitive and perceiving preferences favour transformational leadership. On the contrary, subordinates' ratings indicated that leaders with sensing preference are associated with transformational leadership.
Research limitations/implications
Even if sample size is relatively extensive, it represents mainly middle‐level leaders. More data would be needed to gain the overall picture of this topic in all leadership levels.
Practical implications
Results of this study can be used in training and development, when trying to enhance mutual understanding. Also when leaders are appraising themselves they can have more realistic picture when knowing their tendencies due to the personality.
Originality/value
The results provides further information of this field, where the earlier results have been somehow contradictory. Paper shows how different personalities tend to over‐ or underestimate themselves when comparing to subordinates ratings.
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Rami M. Ayoubi and Bayan Ustwani
The main purpose of this paper is to find whether a correlation exists between students’ natural preferences or what is known as psychological type as determined by the…
Abstract
Purpose
The main purpose of this paper is to find whether a correlation exists between students’ natural preferences or what is known as psychological type as determined by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI); the extent of their enthusiasm measured by their level of “like” to the subject, and students’ grade point average (GPA).
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 89 students who took the MBTI inventory in five selected faculties at Damascus University in Syria. In order to rate the subjects’ like or dislike level, the students were asked to complete a form prepared for this purpose. The students’ GPAs were also included in the analysis.
Findings
Using paired sample t-test, the results indicate a statistically significant correlation between type of student and his/her faculty of study, type of student and overall study subject like, and type of student and his/her GPA. There was, however, a statistically significant correlation between various personality dichotomies of the type (Extraversion-Introversion, Sensing-Intuition, Thinking-Feeling, Judging-Perceiving) and faculty, individual subjects like, and GPA. The study also indicates a statistically significant correlation between study like and GPA, and faculty and GPA. The most critical conclusion from the study is that Sensing-Intuition dichotomy of the MBTI inventory has the strongest correlation to distribution of students among faculties, the subject's like or dislike, and the GPA. In addition, the higher the level of like for a subject, the higher the GPA is.
Research limitations/implications
The study results were based on a sample of students from a specific subject area of study. To validate the results of the study, future research is highly needed on a larger sample of students from different subject disciplines.
Practical implications
Empirically, this study provides decision makers of the higher education sector with relevant information regarding the intended future attempts to reform the university admission policy with regards to the career path.
Originality/value
The usefulness of MBTI inventory has not been assessed in the Arab countries before. This study is therefore considered as one of the initial studies in this field.
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The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the personality and career expectations of business students. The sample consisted of 533 business students…
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the personality and career expectations of business students. The sample consisted of 533 business students. Personality was administered using the F‐version (the Finnish research version) of the Myers‐Briggs Type Indicator and career expectations were studied in Schein’s career orientation framework. Thus the relation between the MBTI preferences and Schein’s career anchors and type preferences of business students was reported. The main research question was: how are business students’ personality preferences and career expectations related to Schein’s career anchors? Business students’ career expectations were mostly seen as belonging to the Technical Competence (26 percent), Managerial Competence (17 percent) and Independence (14 percent) career anchors. Statistical significance was found in many cases.
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Tiina Maria Brandt and Piia Edinger
This study aims to investigate whether transformational leadership exists in teams, and if so, whether it is represented in a similar way as in more traditional leadership…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate whether transformational leadership exists in teams, and if so, whether it is represented in a similar way as in more traditional leadership situations. The study also aims to determine whether a team leader’s sex has an influence on the relationship between personality and team leadership when team members evaluate the leader’s behaviour.
Design/methodology/approach
A quantitative analysis is conducted on input from 104 team leaders and 672 team members from a Finnish university. Data were collected during university courses, and the team leaders’ transformational leadership styles were evaluated by team members at the end of the courses.
Findings
The results indicate that the transformational leadership questionnaire is applicable when studying team leadership; the Visioning dimension might be absent, but Modelling, Enabling, Challenging and Rewarding dimensions represent transformational leadership in teams. Women tend to be more transformational team leaders than men. Personality seems to influence both sexes, so that extraverted and judging personality types are more transformational leaders than introverted and perceiving ones. In relation to sex, introverted, sensing, thinking and perceiving female leaders are regarded as more transformational than men with similar preferences. Additionally, some personality preferences seem to be sex-neutral in terms of team transformational leadership when rated by team members.
Originality/value
There is no previous study combining these variables in the academic team context.
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This study aims to examine the observer’s role in “infant psychophysics”. Infant psychophysics was developed because the diagnosis of perceptual deficits should be done as early…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the observer’s role in “infant psychophysics”. Infant psychophysics was developed because the diagnosis of perceptual deficits should be done as early in a patient’s life as possible, to provide efficacious treatment and thereby reduce potential long-term costs. Infants, however, cannot report their perceptions. Hence, the intensity of a stimulus at which the infant can detect it, the “threshold”, must be inferred from the infant’s behavior, as judged by observers (watchers). But whose abilities are actually being inferred? The answer affects all behavior-based conclusions about infants’ perceptions, including the well-proselytized notion that auditory stimulus-detection thresholds improve rapidly during infancy.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 55 years of infant psychophysics is scrutinized, starting with seminal studies in infant vision, followed by the studies that they inspired in infant hearing.
Findings
The inferred stimulus-detection thresholds are those of the infant-plus-watcher and, more broadly, the entire laboratory. The thresholds are therefore tenuous, because infants’ actions may differ with stimulus intensity; expressiveness may differ between infants; different watchers may judge infants differently; etc. Particularly, the watcher’s ability to “read” the infant may improve with the infant’s age, confounding any interpretation of perceptual maturation. Further, the infant’s gaze duration, an assumed cue to stimulus detection, may lengthen or shorten nonlinearly with infant age.
Research limitations/implications
Infant psychophysics investigators have neglected the role of the observer, resulting in an accumulation of data that requires substantial re-interpretation. Altogether, infant psychophysics has proven far too resilient for its own good.
Originality/value
Infant psychophysics is examined for the first time through second-order cybernetics. The approach reveals serious unresolved issues.
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There are many studies of personality and leadership and gender and leadership, but only few leadership studies have taken into account both personality and gender. That may…
Abstract
Purpose
There are many studies of personality and leadership and gender and leadership, but only few leadership studies have taken into account both personality and gender. That may partly be due to the fact that there are relatively few female leaders, however, the aim of this paper is to discover if similar personality types exhibit the same kind of leadership behavior irrespective of gender.
Design/methodology/approach
The quantitative analysis involves 459 leaders (283 men and 176 women) and 378 subordinates working in various fields. Leaders rated their leadership behavior and subordinates also appraised them.
Findings
Results indicated differences in leadership behavior by gender, in that women exhibited more enabling behavior, and men more challenging behavior. Further, gender and personality had an impact on leadership behavior, as viewed by both leaders and subordinates. For example, extraverted and intuitive male leaders along with those exhibiting the perceiving dimension regarded themselves as more challenging than their introverted, sensing and judging male counterparts, a view confirmed by subordinates in the case of perceiving male leaders.
Research limitations/implications
As limitations, the Myers‐Briggs Type Indicator offers only one view of the personality, and future studies would be needed with different methods. Also the study did not control confounding factors, and it should be taken into account with the study.
Practical implications
From a practical view point, this study offers specific knowledge for people seeking to develop themselves as leaders.
Originality/value
Very few studies have concentrated on the relationship between personality and gender in the transformational leadership context, and this study provides a new perspective on this area.
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Elizabeth R. Towell and Joachim Lauer
There has been long‐term interest in the processes that affect human‐computer interaction, particularly those causing stress. Computer related stress has previously been…
Abstract
There has been long‐term interest in the processes that affect human‐computer interaction, particularly those causing stress. Computer related stress has previously been correlated to general stress (Cohen, Kamarack, and Mermelstein 1983) and to somatic complaints (Derogatis et al. 1974). A negative correlation between perceived stress and academic performance has also been documented (Hudiburg and Jones 1991). This study compares computer related stress levels in three business student populations (239 students): juniors who have not begun their major course work, seniors who are MIS majors, and graduate MBA students. Using standard analysis of variance, we found that MIS students experienced a significantly higher number of stressors than the other two groups and a greater average severity of stress than the premajors. Human‐computer interaction is suspected to be more stressful for MIS students than other business students because their use of computers is greater and their grades are more heavily weighted toward computer work. This study further considers the various personality types/learning styles of these students and investigates how they might be accommodated to minimize anxiety. The Myers‐Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test and a computer assignment preference test were administered to the 239 students. Recommendations for different learner types, in terms of environment variables and computer assignment characteristics, were made.
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Adriana Frantz, Rodolfo Leandro de Faria Olivo, George André Willrich Sales and Fabiana Silva
This research aims to investigate how personality, identified through the psychological type, can contribute to a more robust process of identifying the investor's profile. The…
Abstract
Purpose
This research aims to investigate how personality, identified through the psychological type, can contribute to a more robust process of identifying the investor's profile. The traditional process of investor profile analysis of Brazilian financial institutions is performed through a form in which basic information is required to define the profile. By adding psychological and behavioral aspects obtained through the Myers–Briggs type indicator (MBTI) typology, institutions participating in the financial and capital markets could enrich the understanding of their clients.
Design/methodology/approach
It presents a quantitative approach, with an exploratory-descriptive focus, with a survey carried out on a sample of 613 investors, in which nonparametric tests were performed to test hypotheses on the influence of personality on the behavioral aspects of these investors.
Findings
The results showed a relationship between the dimensions of the personality type and the investment profile, indicating that personality is a relevant factor in guiding investor behavior. In this context, evidence of the applicability of the principles of behavioral finance to investor behavior was found, to the detriment of traditional finance principles.
Practical implications
Findings help investors to plan and manage their finances more appropriate manner. Financial institutions can create more accurate and realistic investor profile analysis processes, adding psychological and behavioral aspects obtained through the MBTI typology. In this way, companies and financial advisors will be able to provide a better-quality service to their clients, recommending the most appropriate investment strategies.
Originality/value
The elements originality of this study are as follows: (1) methodology: there is a lack of research covering the application of personality assessment tools, particularly the MBTI, to improve investor's profile analysis; (2) geographical coverage: lack of research of the theme in Brazil and Latin America in general; (3) robustness of the database.