HEXACO Personality and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: A Domain- and Facet-Level Meta-Analysis

Several meta-analyses have demonstrated that personality is an important predictor of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). However, these meta-analyses have almost exclusively focused on Big Five personality domains, whereas recent evidence suggests that personality might be captured more accurately by the six HEXACO domains. Here, we provide a comprehensive meta-analysis of all HEXACO domain- and facet-level relations with OCB (k = 21). Extraversion (rho = .347) exhibits the strongest relation with OCB, followed by Conscientiousness (rho = .319), Agreeableness (rho = .217), Honesty-Humility (rho = .208), and Openness to Experience (rho = .195). Emotionality does not correlate with OCB (rho = -.002). The six HEXACO domains explain 13.7% of the variance in OCB, whereas the amount of explained variance increases by 3.4% when using the 24 HEXACO facets (R-2 = .171). This discrepancy can be explained by masking effects among the facets of Honesty-Humility and Conscientiousness, and by a cancellation effect among the facets of Emotionality. Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications as well as limitations and ideas for future research are discussed.

Automated summary

Several meta-analyses have shown that personality plays a significant role in predicting organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). This study specifically focuses on the HEXACO personality domains and their relationships with OCB, finding that traits like Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Honesty-Humility, and Openness to Experience have the strongest correlations with OCB, while Emotionality does not. Additionally, the study explores the discrepancy in explained variance when using different levels of HEXACO facets, identifying masking and cancellation effects among certain facets.