PERSONALITY TRAITS AS PREDICTORS OF BEHAVIOR IN THE ETHICALLY SENSITIVE SITUATIONS

Article has for objective analysis of personality traits as behavioral predictors in the ethically sensitive situation. Personality traits are defined on the basis of the personality test Hexaco 60 including 6 personality dimensions: Honesty-Humility, Extraversion, Emotionality, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience. For the purpose of a more exact analysis, we split Honesty-Humility dimension into two sub-dimensions: "Ethical attitude", consisting of Fairness and Sincerity traits and "Influence & welfare", consisting of Greed avoidance and Modesty. We enacted the behavioral experiment (in-class simulation) on the group of undergraduate students of business (n = 157). In the experiments students had to decide on their preference to become a manager in the ethically sensitive situation. In the analysis we employed structural equation modeling (SmartPLS software). Based on the SEM calculation we found that the only personality trait predicting preference of the managerial position in the ethically sensitive (unethical) situation is the Ethical attitude (Fairness and Sincerity). The results have important implication for HR management and personnel selection.