2026 Theses Doctoral

From Traits to Ties: Investigating Social Network Dynamics as the Missing Link Between the Big Five and Key Workplace Outcomes

Rosemarino, Nicholas M.

The Big Five personality traits have been extensively linked to key workplace outcomes through decades of meta-analytic evidence, with robust relationships demonstrated for job satisfaction, burnout, and turnover intentions. However, prior research has not investigated whether these established relationships operate through social network mechanisms.

The present study addresses this gap by testing whether social network dynamics at work account for personality's influence on job satisfaction, burnout, and turnover intentions. Drawing on dynamic network theory (DNT), this research represents the first empirical application of a fully validated social network assessment measuring a comprehensive taxonomy of network ties bidirectionally, whereby both outgoing ties (from employees to their social network actors) and incoming ties (from social network actors back to employees) were each assessed through three psychometrically validated items. The higher-order constructs of network motivation and network resistance around work goals and performance were hypothesized to mediate personality-outcome relationships.

Using a three-wave time-lagged design, I recruited a national sample of full-time U.S. employees (T1 = 594; T2 = 451; T3 = 423). Results demonstrated that personality traits generally predicted DNT network ties in expected directions, and DNT ties subsequently predicted all three workplace outcomes. Global mediation tests revealed that while higher-order DNT ties functioned as mediators, unexpectedly, the big five produced robust direct effects above and beyond the network effects. Path analytical results revealed that social network ties accounted for between 14% and 27% of the variance in specific personality-outcome pathways.

A notable exception was the relationship between extraversion and job satisfaction, where network dynamics accounted for 61% of the variance in this pathway. Incremental validity analyses demonstrated that personality traits explained an additional 13.3% of outcome variance, on average beyond network dynamics, while network dynamics explained 7.9%, on average, beyond personality.

Surprisingly, some of the Big 5 dimensions demonstrated fundamentally different effects on network dynamics. Most saliently, extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness most strongly predicted network motivation, while agreeableness and neuroticism most strongly predicted network resistance, which has not been found in past personality research. In sum, this dissertation discovered that the Big 5 dimensions had different network effects for different people at work. Notably, highly disagreeable employees encountered the greatest network resistance with supervisors and upper management and the least with coworkers. Theoretical contributions include demonstrating that personality and network dynamics both operate as potent pathways to workplace outcomes.