The Effect of Personality on Work Motivation and Its Impact on Organizational Citizenship Behavior of Employees of Public Department in Portugal

Abstract

This work analyses the relationship between personality, work motivation and organizational citizenship behaviour. Participants were 129 employees of both genders, in public organizations in Portugal, who fulfilled three self-report questionnaires: Instrument of Measure of Organizational Citizenship Behaviors, Scale Multi-Factorial Motivation at Work and Revised NEO Personality Inventory. The second-order hierarchical latent variable model using partial least squares structural equation modelling was employed to test the relationship among the variables. Results show that only four dimensions of personality (extroversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, conscientiousness) and three dimensions of work motivation (work structure motivation, commitment motivation and, goal-setting motivation) have a significant effect on the organizational citizenship behaviour. The importance of psychological assessment in an organizational context is discussed.

Keywords

• organizational citizenship behaviors
• personality
• work motivation
• organizational context