Unraveling the relationship between personality traits, perceived organizational support, and work engagement: a study of academic staff in Malaysia

Academic staff constitutes the backbone of the academic institutions. The current worrying dwindling of work engagement among the academic staff has created the need for this study. The present study tried to determine the factors (resources) that might contribute to the work engagement of academic staff. The main objective of this study was to examine the relationship between the big five personality traits, perceived organizational support, and work engagement among academic staff in Malaysia. Data was collected from 390 academic staff of higher education institutions in Malaysia using a convenience sampling method. This research was conducted by applying a quantitative correlational research design and a cross-sectional survey method. The Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), Big Five Inventory (BFI), and Survey of Perceived Organizational Support (SPOS) were used to measure work engagement, personality traits, and perceived organizational support respectively. Both descriptive and Multiple Regression analyses were used to examine the data. The results showed that the level of work engagement among academic staff was average, creating a cause for concern. This study also found that perceived organizational support was significantly and positively related to work engagement and its three dimensions. Of the five personality traits, only openness to experience was positively and significantly related to work engagement and its three dimensions. Agreeableness was not significantly related to work engagement. The personality traits conscientiousness, extraversion, and neuroticism demonstrated a significant relationship with only one of the dimensions of work engagement which is vigor. Moreover, the results also revealed that perceived organizational support and openness to experience were the strongest predictors of work engagement and its dimensions. The results of this study suggest that higher education institutions should focus on hiring candidates with certain personality traits and increasing organizational support to achieve a highly engaged academic workforce.