The Relationship Between Personality Traits, Internal Communication, Transformational Leadership and Sense of Urgency: A Mixed Method Study of Repso Malaysia

Sense of urgency is a crucial element of a successful change process. This research was designed to investigate the relationship between personality traits (FFP), internal communication and moderated by leadership style of transformational with sense of urgency. It employed mixed method, which is both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies in examining the said relationship against a real-life scenario of major change in a single entity of a
Multi National Corporation - Repso Malaysia. Through on-line questionnaire and semi structured interviews, a total of 247 employees of various functions, job levels and cross border cultures made up the case study of this research. The findings of the research confirmed the positive relationship of conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and openness to experiences with sense of urgency. The trait of neuroticism revealed a negative but non-significant relationship to sense of urgency and duly supported with justification by the research. Meanwhile, internal communication as predicted showed a positive relationship with the sense of urgency. In addition, the moderating variable of transformational leadership indeed showed significant influence on the independent variables relationship to sense of urgency. Other than contributing to the body of knowledge over a subject which is empirically
scarce, the research further renewed the importance of micro level analysis of an organization i.e. individuals rather than only the macro level. The research prides its originality and ends with comprehensive practical recommendations for company in blending the elements of employees' personality, structured communication and leveraged by transformational style of leadership into arriving to the desired state of sense of urgency to change.