ABSTRACT
Personality assessment is an established part of many selection procedures in Western countries (Furnham, 2008; Sackett & Lievens, 2008), despite its questioned predictive validity throughout the years. Opponents (e.g., Morgeson et al., 2007a, 2007b) have mainly questioned the small magnitude of the predictive correlations and further criticized the fakability of self-descriptions in at-stake contexts such as job selection procedures. Proponents (Ones, Dilchert, Viswesvaran, & Judge, 2007; Tett & Christiansen, 2007) meta-analytically reviewed validity coefficients and concluded that validities (1) are not trivial; (2) generalize across different contexts and cultures, with job characteristics acting as a moderator; (3) have demonstrated utility for selection decisions; and (4) are not necessarily worse than validities obtained with alternative methods of selection assessment (Rolland & De Fruyt, 2009). Although most authors agree that many individuals will put their best feet forward when describing their personality (in a selection context), there are varying opinions on how to handle and consider impression management. In addition to selection, personality assessment is used more and more in the context of career development and coaching, so its prominence and impact in the industrial and organizational (IO) field is steadily increasing. Given the range of criteria that are predicted by traits, it is to be expected that the frequency of personality assessments in IO professional practice will amplify in a globalized economy, where direct and indirect contacts with colleagues and customers representing diverse cultural backgrounds will be the norm rather than the exception. This multicultural context generates a series of questions and challenges that are beyond the description of personality differences for members of a single culture. With respect to personality description, questions at stake include the following: (1) What kind of trait model (and accompanying operationalization) should one use to describe an individual’s personality within and across cultural contexts, which gets at whether one can use inventories that are developed in one culture to assess applicants with a different cultural background? (2) What norms should one use when comparing individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds applying for jobs in which they will have to collaborate intensively? (3) Do applicants from diverse cultural backgrounds perceive assessment contexts differently? In other words, are self-enhancing strategies in personality descriptions in development or selection contexts perceived alike across cultural groups? (4) What about the accuracy of personality stereotypes of cultural groups? Given their potential impact in selection processes, it is important to know whether such stereotypes reflect a kernel of truth or do not match observed differences among cultural groups. With respect to the predictive validity of personality, a key question is whether culture acts as a moderator of personality–criterion relationships.
