Editorial to special issue “Personality and individual differences and healthy organizations”

1. Introduction

In the current world of work characterized by instability and insecurity, the well-being of individuals is threatened (Blustein, Kenny, Di Fabio, & Guichard, 2019; Peiró, Sora, & Caballer, 2012). This threat has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This scenario continually asks for the necessity to promote “healthy organizations” (Di Fabio, 2017; Peiró & Tetrick, 2011), to enhance positive results for individuals, groups and organizations in strength-based prevention perspectives (Di Fabio and Kenny, 2016, Di Fabio and Kenny, 2019; Di Fabio and Saklofske, 2014, Di Fabio and Saklofske, 2020; Hage et al., 2007; Kenny & Hage, 2009). From the perspective of individual differences, personal strength and resilience forms a major component in the person-organization fit theory (Kristof, 1996). In this framework, it is important to further the exploration of personality and individual differences in relation to healthy organizations and flourishing and resilient workers (Di Fabio, 2017). The importance of positive individual resources and positive work environment in enhancing employees' health, well-being and performance (Peiró, Bayona, Caballer, & Di Fabio, 2020) is highlighted.

The 21st century shows the challenge of promoting healthier societies and fostering healthy organizations (Di Fabio, 2017; Peiró, 2008; Tetrick & Peiró, 2012) underlining the importance of individuals' health for organizational success and the close connection between employees and organizational well-being. Personality and individual differences are critical factors in relation to well-being of employees for the organizational effectiveness and functioning. In healthy organizations, culture, climate, and practices create an environment to promote employee health and safety as well as organizational effectiveness (Di Fabio, 2017; Di Fabio & Peiró, 2018; Peiró & Rodríguez, 2008). The research challenge at the basis of this special issue is to study in depth personality and individual differences in relation to healthy employees in organizations.

2. Healthy organizations

Occupational Health Psychology has adopted a definition of health consistent with the World Health Organization's definition that extends well beyond simply the absence of illness. In fact, it is conceptualized in terms of optimal functioning (Tetrick & Peiró, 2012). Occupational Health Psychology has extended beyond the medical model of health, from an ill-health perspective to a positive health perspective, including promotion of health, well-being, and flourishing (Hofmann & Tetrick, 2003; Macik-Frey, Quick, & Nelson, 2007; Schaufeli, 2004). Furthermore, Occupational Health Psychology extends the conceptualization of safety to include psychosocial factors in the work environment (Tetrick & Peiró, 2012) in terms of climate, interpersonal relations, coworkers support and leadership. The authors recommended to incorporate the realities of today's work environment and integrate a positive approach. The current challenge is a more complete conceptualization of positive health (Tetrick & Peiró, 2012) and strength-based prevention perspective (Di Fabio, 2017; Di Fabio & Saklofske, 2020) for healthy organizations.

Healthy business and healthy organizations (Di Fabio, 2017; Peiró, 2008; Peiró & Tetrick, 2011) emphasize the importance of health and performance of individuals at work for organizational success, safe business, effectiveness and functioning, underlining the sound relationships between well-being of workers and organizational well-being. Furthermore, healthy organizations call for a positive perspective with an attention to studying success, excellence and resources, balancing negative orientation and focusing on positive approach and strength at the individual, group, organization and inter-organization levels (Di Fabio, 2017; Henry, 2005; Tetrick & Peiró, 2012). Healthy organizations in the positive perspective (Di Fabio, 2017; Henry, 2005) also emphasize the need for further research into organizational practices and management that lead to positive work experiences in today's changeable and competitive market-place. A positive approach calls for avoiding to look for deficiency and failure and for enhancing resources, paying attention to construct positive narratives (Di Fabio, 2017) and strength, underlining the importance of these interventions at different levels (individual, group, organization, and inter-organization) (Tetrick & Peiró, 2012). Furthermore, healthy organizations need to find the right balance in relation to their specific situation, sector and culture, highlighting the cross-cultural importance of well-being and sustainability (Di Fabio, 2017; Di Fabio & Peiró, 2018; Di Fabio & Rosen, 2018).

The value of the strength-based prevention perspectives (Di Fabio and Saklofske, 2014, Di Fabio and Saklofske, 2020) and early building strengths (Hage et al., 2007; Kenny & Hage, 2009) that focus on personality and individual differences for the well-being of workers and organizations became more evident. These perspectives enhance efforts to increase the resources for promoting healthy people, healthy workers and healthy organizations. The promotion of strength-based prevention perspectives asks for enhancing growth and positive experiences with the development of a safe and positive healthy and sustainable work environment (Di Fabio, 2017; Di Fabio & Peiró, 2018; Di Fabio & Rosen, 2018) at all levels, from individuals to groups, organizations and across organizations (Peiró, 2008; Tetrick & Peiró, 2012).

3. Personality and individual differences for healthy organizations

Extensive research has established personality traits as major distal predictors of well-being and health (Friedman & Kern, 2014). Furnham (2002) underlined the role of personality and individual differences at the workplace, highlighting their contribution in relation to work motivation, productivity, work satisfaction, and stress. Meta-analyses have consistently confirmed that personality predicts different indicators of vocational behavior and work performance (Barrick, Mount, & Judge, 2001; Dudley, Orvis, Lebiecki, & Cortina, 2006), including job dedication, interpersonal facilitation, management effectiveness. Langelaan, Bakker, Van Doornen, and Schaufeli (2006) studied burnout and its opposite (work engagement) based on personality and temperament. Along this theme, they tried to answer to the question: “Do individual differences make a difference?”Individual differences have been studied in relation to work stress and health by many researchers (Bakker, Du, & Derks, 2019; Martínez-Monteagudo, Inglés, Granados, Aparisi, & García-Fernández, 2019; Semmer & Meier, 2009). Personality and individual differences were also studied specifically in relation to health of workers and well-being (Bayona, Caballer, & Peiró, 2020; Langelaan et al., 2006).

A review by Mäkikangas, Feldt, Kinnunen, and Mauno (2013) focused on individual differences in occupational well-being in a positive organizational psychology perspective by asking the following question: “Does personality matter?” In this review, the authors showed that earliest research focused on a single characteristic, such as Type A behavior, negative affectivity, locus of control, sense of coherence, self-efficacy, or optimism. Subsequent research considered combinations of personality dispositions concerning an individual's positive evaluation of the self, control beliefs, and having a favorable orientation toward the future (Judge, Locke, Durham, & Kluger, 1998). Mäkikangas, et al., underlined also the importance of motivational variables such as work engagement which has been extensively studied (Albrecht, 2010; Bakker & Demerouti, 2008; Bakker & Leiter, 2010). Among the personality measures used in these studies, the NEO-PI-R based on the Five Factor Model is the most common. In particular, Conscientiousness and Neuroticism (including optimism and emotional stability) were found to be consistent personality predictors.

There have been more recent research on the relationship between personality and work behavior or outcomes in Asian societies, including job stress, burnout and job satisfaction (Cheung, Fan, & Yao, 2012). In many of these international studies, imported personality measures, especially the NEO-PI-R, have been used. Although the universal personality factors of the Five Factor Model were confirmed as useful predictors, more culture-sensitive personality measures were called for to identify relevant indigenous traits that would explain work outcomes beyond the universal traits especially in interpersonal contexts. Cheung and her colleagues have shown that an indigenously derived factor in the Cross-Cultureal (Chinese) Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI-2; Cheung, Cheung, & Fan, 2013), Interpersonal Relatedness (IR), was independent of the Big Five (Cheung et al., 2008). The IR factor depicted the relational aspects of personality in Chinese culture including the tendency to maintian harmony and consciousness about saving face. The indigenous personality dimensions contributed additional variance in explaining work behavior in interpersonal contexts (Cheung et al., 2012).

These international studies illustrate the importance of incorporating both the etic and emic perspectives in studying the relationship between personality and healthy organizations from a cross-cultural perspective. The richness of the international contributions in this Special Issue reflect the continuing interest in the study of personality and individual differences from a wider context of the person-organization fit theory that contributes to promoting healthy workers, healthy organizations and healthy business.

4. Context and origin of the special issue

The theme of this Special Issue was inspired by three International Conferences titled “Healthier Societies fostering Healthy Organizations: A Cross-cultural Perspective”, two-day scientific events periodically organized by the University of Florence (Italy) on the basis of the International Core-group in the order of its constitution (José-Maria Peiró, University of Valencia, Spain; Donald H. Saklofske, University of Western Ontario, Canada; Maureen E. Kenny, Boston College, USA; Fanny Cheung, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; Akira Tsuda, Kurume University, Japan; Annamaria Di Fabio, University of Florence, Italy). The founding international conference was held in 2017, the second international conference was held in 2018 on the basis of the success of the previous event, and the third meeting is planned for 2021. The main aim of the International Core-group is to share contributions focusing on research, assessment, and interventions that will offer new or innovative perspectives to foster healthier societies paying attention to healthy organizations within the public and private sectors. Cross-cultural studies and perspectives will further show-case the applications and implications of current efforts to create positive human ecosystems. The present Special Issue was born in this scientific context to extend the call to catalyze attention of international scholars on these themes of enhancing research on healthy organizations. This Special Issue highlights the theme of personality and individual differences and healthy organizations, contributing to broaden the perspectives of research and interventions, especially strength-based prevention perspectives (Di Fabio and Kenny, 2016, Di Fabio and Kenny, 2019; Di Fabio & Peiró, 2018; Di Fabio and Saklofske, 2014, Di Fabio and Saklofske, 2020).

5. The papers included in the special issue

This special issue gathers 23 articles that make significant contributions to a better understanding of the antecedents, processes and consequences of healthy workers and healthy organizations and their promotion. To achieve this aim, special attention has been paid to the role of individual differences and personality. It is interesting to highlight the broad international interest on this topic. Authors coming from about 20 countries from the five continents have contributed to the special issue and the samples studied come from a similar array of countries.

Three sections can be distinguished that tackle important issues of individual and in some cases, collective psychosocial health in organizations. In the first section, we recollect the contributions addressing issues that may hamper health and wellbeing in organizations, with special attention to the role of personality and individual differences interacting with the contextual factors. Paciello, Fida, Tramontano, Ghezzi, and Barbaranelli focus on workplace bullying in a sample of 1019 Italian employees. They identify five clusters taking into account not just the exposure to different types of bullying but also health problems and deviant behaviors. The study combines an articulated description of phenomenological manifestations of bullying with an in-depth picture of individual processes operating within the regulative system. In their study, Tesi, Aiello, Morselli, Giannetti, Pierro and Pratto aim at clarifying some mechanism of power misfunctioning in organizations. Following the framework of Social Dominance Theory, the authors hypothesize that members of subordinate groups who are higher on social dominance orientation (SDO) coordinate with dominant ones in maintaining asymmetrical relationships. Results showed that participants' SDO at time 1 predicted their compliance to harsh power tactics at time 2, controlling for their initial levels of compliance to harsh power tactics. These findings contribute to the understanding of power maintenance in organizations and their potential dysfunctions. In another paper, the relationships between employees and bosses are analyzed by Roberts and David paying attention to the boss' phone snubbing (phubbing), defined as an employee's perception that his/her immediate supervisor is distracted by his/her smartphone while in their presence. In two studies the authors analyzed the relationship of phubbing to employee's performance showing a negative association with employee's job performance through supervisory trust and job satisfaction.

Burnout is an important health construct often studied as an indicator of poor employees' health. A number of studies in this special issue have analyzed the individual and environmental antecedents and processes that contribute to burnout and other related outcomes in organizations. Akirmak and Ayla, in a sample of Turkish bank employees, studied time perspective as a resource that, jointly with core individual self-evaluation, influence job satisfaction, with partial mediation of burnout. Participants with a more balanced time perspective presented lower burnout leading to higher job satisfaction. Guan and Jepsen in a sample of Australian aged care employees, studied the effects of intrinsic (i.e., self-regulating emotions through reappraisal or suppression) and extrinsic regulating emotions (through cognitive change or response modulation) on burnout and the moderating role of employees' dispositional gratitude. Results showed that when employees regulated others' emotions, their dispositional gratitude buffered the effect of cognitive change on emotional exhaustion as well as the effects of response modulation on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. When employees regulated their own emotions, gratitude did not moderate the relationships between emotion regulation and burnout. The study underlines the possible contribution of gratitude to enhance employees' well-being and health. From a person-centric perspective, Min and Su examined the relations between personality profiles and burnout as well as citizenship and counterproductive behaviors. Using latent profile analysis (LPA) showed that the ‘ordinary’, ‘resilient’ and ‘rigid’ personality profiles presented meaningful variance with the outcomes studied. The authors underline the importance of person-centered approaches when examining the relations between personality traits and health and performance outcomes. Finally, the study by Kwantes and Bond focused on cynicism, one important facet of burnout. The authors analyzed the relationships between general social cynicism and three forms of cynicism about one's organization (cognitive, affective, and behavioral) and organizational justice (distributive, procedural, and interactional) in students, part-time and full-time employees. Their results highlighted that the relations between social cynicism and cynicism about the own organization was moderated by perceptions of distributive injustice and by autonomy suggesting that organizations can take actions to buffer that negative social attitudes have an effect within the organization, preventing this component of occupational burnout.

The last study included in this section focused on antecedents of work stress experience, paying special attention to inequity perceptions. Pérez-Rodríguez, Topa, and Beléndez examined, in a sample of Spanish workers, the mediating role of positive and negative emotions in the relationship between organizational injustice or inequity perceptions and work stress. In all three dimensions of organizational justice (distributive, procedural and interactional), the mediation role of emotions consists of a higher frequency of negative emotions. Moreover, the indirect effect of procedural justice through positive emotions was also statistically significant. Drawing from the results the authors suggest interventions and future research avenues.

The second section of articles contributes from the positive psychology approach emphasizing how to enhance wellbeing and health in employees and to promote healthier organizations. One important area to do so concerns resilience. Lau, Chiesi, Saklofske, Yan and Li presented the Essential Resilience Scale (ERS), a locally developed measure conceptualized by Chinese researchers with strong psychometric properties in Chinese population. The authors have compared data from the Chinese sample with others obtained from a multiethnic Canadian sample. Differential item functioning (DIF) analyses showed that six out of 15 items were flagged for DIF, being more discriminant for the Chinese version than for the English one. The study points out interestingly the cross-cultural conceptualization of resiliency. In another study, Lau, Chiesi and Saklofske examined how two personality traits, cheerfulness and seriousness, may interact in relation to resiliency that in turn mediates the relationship between cheerfulness and subjective well-being. The results, using a sample of Italian students and their families, show that cheerfulness is positively related to subjective wellbeing. Moreover, resilience significantly mediated the relationship between these two variables, while the relationship between cheerfulness and resilience was moderated by seriousness: The relation was stronger at low levels of seriousness. Gardner, in a sample of managers mostly from USA aimed to analyze the moderating role of resilience in the indirect relationships between both internal and external antecedents and wellbeing. The author found that autonomy (as an external resource) in interaction with resilience (an internal resource) influenced organizational-based self-esteem (OBSE) that in turn mediated the relations between autonomy and psychological wellbeing. Against the hypothesized moderation of resilience, the results showed that high job autonomy most benefited in terms of OBSE those participants who were low in trait resilience, while providing fewer benefits to high resilient participants.

Authenticity is another important personality variable that plays a role in promoting individual wellbeing. Sutton from a positive psychology perspective aimed to establish, through a meta-analysis, the relationships of authentic expression of self with well-being (65 studies) and with engagement (10 studies). Overall, the meta-analysis highlighted that authenticity shows positive significant relations both with individual well-being and work engagement. Moreover, the individualism-collectivism cultural dimension played a moderator role between authenticity and well-being: The more collectivist culture, the weaker the relationship. Simonette and Castille focused on the meaning at work, an important source of personal fulfillment. Through the analysis of partial correlations of personality and job characteristic variables the authors found that the meaning of work can play a mediator role linking some of those variables to important organizational outcomes. The results of the study showed that enthusiasm (directly) and other personality aspects (indirectly through job characteristics) were related to experienced meaningfulness at work. Nevertheless, job characteristics are more strongly associated with experienced meaningfulness than personality aspects, pointing out the potential of job redesign in enhancing meaningful experiences at work.

Self Determination Theory is a fruitful approach to analyze the influence of external and internal variables on employees' wellbeing. Malinowska and Tokarz analyzed the role of general causality orientations in the motivational impact of job resources on work engagement on 1020 outsourcing sector employees working in Poland. Both autonomous orientation (boosting the relation) and impersonal orientation causality (buffering the relation) moderated the relationship between job resources and work engagement while controlled orientation did not play such a moderation role. The results show the importance of the interaction between situational and individual resources to predict engagement. In fact, work engagement is an important construct in the study of individuals' wellbeing in organizations. The contribution by Tisu, Lupsa, Vîrgă, and Rusu, analyzed the mediating role of work engagement in the prediction of proactive personality, core self-evaluation and psychological capital on job performance and mental health in a sample of Romanian workers. Results confirmed the mediation role of work engagement between personality traits, and performance and mental health. However, results also showed that core self-evaluation variables directly predicted performance and mental health and psychological capital directly predicted mental health. The authors explain the differences distinguishing the personality traits from the more malleable personality characteristics. Core self-evaluation (CSE) have additionally attracted the interest of studies that analyze engagement. Bipp, Kleingeld and Ebert studied the role of core self-evaluations as a positive, personal resource in the motivational (engagement) and health impairment (burnout exhaustion and disengagement) processes. The authors found that CSE directly predicts engagement and also influences it through job crafting (increasing structural resources). Nevertheless, the interaction of CES with job crafting was non-significant. In a second study, the authors tested a similar model to predict health impairment and found that CES negatively predicted both burnout dimensions. Additionally, psychological detachment partially mediated the prediction of CES on exhaustion. Finally, the interaction of CES and detachment did not significantly predict burnout. The authors conclude that CES, as a broad individual difference set of variables play a relevant role in the motivational and the health impairment processes at work and recommend to take it into consideration when designing and implementing human resources practices.

The relationships of personality traits and individual differences with initiative and proactive behaviors have also received attention in several studies included in this special issue. Tu, Lu, Wang, and Liu, through a multisource longitudinal study, examined the lagged relations between conscientiousness and proactive behavior in a sample of professional and administration Chinese employees. The study found that, in line with the broaden-and-build theory, that the employees' flourishing at Time 2 (T2) significantly mediated the lagged relation of conscientiousness (T1) and proactive behavior (T3). In addition, job meaningfulness (T1) significantly strengthened the relationship between conscientiousness and flourishing. In this way, this study contributed in clarifying the how and when the conscientiousness personality trait had a stronger impact on proactive behavior. Butucescu, Zanfirescu & Iliescu focused their study on the role of personality traits (conscientiousness and openness) as determinants of job crafting. Then, following the job demands-resources model, examined the roles of job crafting and strengths use to predict contextual performance in a sample of health care professionals in Romania. The results showed that job crafting is predicted by conscientiousness and openness and that the use of one's own strengths partially mediated the influence of job crafting on contextual performance, that is considered an important performance output in health care services. Finally, the study by Puigmitja, Robledo, and Topa aim to validate the Spanish version of Intrapreneurial Self-Capital Scale (ISCS), testing its psychometric properties. Moreover, their analyses show lagged relationship between ISCS and indicators of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being at work. More specifically Intrapreneurial Self-Capital at T1 significantly predicted flourishing at T2. In sum, the papers considered in this section have provided a rich view of how personality and individual differences contribute to the wellbeing, health and performance of employees in organizations and also how, under several internal or external boundary conditions and paths, they contribute to promote healthy, happy and productive members that may enhance healthier organizations.

The third section of studies focus on emotional intelligence, an important construct in recent studies aiming to contribute to enhance organizational health. Four contributions have been gathered in this special issue that focus on the study of emotional intelligence (EI) in relation to different related constructs such as personality occupational traits, wellbeing (hedonic, eudaimonic and engagement) and career adaptability. The article by Furnham and Taylor examines the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and occupational personality scales in senior management using the occupational scales of Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI) with a sample from South and West African countries. The results show that EI measured as EQ-i 2.0 plays a role in the prediction of potential work success as measured by the occupational scales on the HPI, although in some scales the correlation was negative. The authors underlined the implications for personnel selection. The contribution by Mérida-López, Bakker, and Extremera used job demands-resources and emotional intelligence theories to test a moderated mediation model aiming to predict work engagement by emotional demands mediated by stress appraisal and moderated by EI. The model was tested in two independent Spanish teacher samples (childhood and primary educators; secondary educators). The results showed that emotional intelligence did not moderate the relationship between emotional demands and self-appraised stress. However, it did buffer the relationship between self-appraised stress and work engagement in both teacher samples. The findings offered guidance for intervention to reduce the detrimental effects of stress on work engagement. Di Fabio and Kenny presented two studies examining the relationships between individual psychological resources (trait EI and Positive Relational Management) and hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. In particular, the first study showed that trait EI explained a percentage of incremental variance beyond the one accounted for by personality traits concerning both hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. The second study highlighted the contribution of Positive Relational Management (PRM) beyond personality traits to hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Finally, Parmentier, Pirsoul, and Nils presented a study that investigated the lagged relations of emotional intelligence on career adaptability in a two-wave longitudinal study among a sample of adult learners. Their results showed that emotional intelligence predicted career adaptability while controlling for prior levels of career adaptability and socio-demographic variables. These findings underlined the role of emotional intelligence for adaptive career processes in Belgian adult learners. In sum, the studies on emotional intelligence have contributed to a better understanding of this construct in the process of enhancing individual and organizational wellbeing and performance.

6. Conclusions

The contributions to this Special Issue attest the vitality and diversity of research regarding personality and individual differences and healthy organizations. The three research areas, in which the articles converged, underline the contribution of personality and individual differences for healthy organizations, healthy workers, healthy environments; critical aspects that can compromise healthy organizations, and relative protective awareness; the topic of well-being and resources in organizations from various perspectives and including different variables.

The world of work in the 21st century (Blustein et al., 2019; Peiró et al., 2012) poses challenges to the well-being of individuals. In this context, strength-based prevention perspectives (Di Fabio & Saklofske, 2020) underline the importance of personality and individual differences that could be amenable to specific training and their relevance for well-being of individuals, workers and organizations. The results of the studies included in this Special Issue open future perspectives for research and intervention, highlighting different strengths as resources for workers in the current turbulent times. Work is able to give a fundamental contribution in health and well-being of workers (Peiró, 2008; Peiró et al., 2020; Tetrick & Peiró, 2012) and a perspective centered on developing psychological strengths is essential (Di Fabio and Saklofske, 2014, Di Fabio and Saklofske, 2020). Healthy organizations benefit from well-being of workers and organizational environments. We will also be able to reach healthier societies through healthy organizations. The hope is that this Special Issue reinvigorates the scientific reflection at an international level regarding the theme of personality and individual differences and healthy organizations.