The Impact of Big Five Personality Factors on Employees’ Career Success: Evidence from a Leading Apparel Firm, in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Every employee wants to have a highly successful career that they enjoy, which provides them with the lifestyle they desire. Compared to many others, most employees are more concerned about their career success in the Apparel Sector. Most of the employees do not achieve the desired success in their career because there are some issues with their behaviors. Hence, the purpose of this study is to examine the impact of the big five personality factors on employees’ career success. The dependent variable is career success, and the independent variable is the big five model. A questionnaire survey was conducted to gather data from staff-level employees, and 120 responses were obtained by selecting one leading apparel firm following the non-proportionate stratified random sampling technique. In this quantitative study, correlation and regression analysis were used to analyze data through SPSS Version 23.0. Based on the findings, conscientiousness and openness to experience were moderately correlated with subjective career success. Also, extraversion and agreeableness are positively associated with subjective career success. Thus, conscientiousness, openness to experience is positively related to objective career success. However, neuroticism is negatively correlated with objective career success, and extraversion was not supported to objective career success. Findings showed that there is a considerable impact of big five personality factors on career success. Hence, an organization should have a massive role to consider personality factors to improve the level of success in careers.