Worldwide, only 13% of workers are passionate about their work (Gallup, 2013). Passion at work embodies “a strong inclination toward an activity that people like, that they find important, and in which they invest time and energy” (Vallerand & Houlfort, 2003, p. 177). This emotional investment helps organisations to thrive (Gallup, 2013). In the rapidly changing global economy, work passion becomes increasingly decisive for organisations that aim to sustainably increase labour productivity. However, the current literature has largely neglected the antecedents of work passion rather focusing on the consequences of passion at work such as performance (Astakhova, 2015; Astakhova & Porter, 2015; Burke et al., 2015; Ho et al., 2011), work satisfaction and turnover intentions (Houlfort et al., 2014), or product innovation (Klaukien et al., 2013). More recent work has shown evidence for social contagion of work passion (Ho et al., 2021).
In the extant literature, two types of passion are usually distinguished: Harmonious work passion (HWP) and obsessive work passion (OWP) (Vallerand & Houlfort, 2003). The two passion types differ regarding how they absorb passionate work. Employees with HWP keep in control of their work and have a high work satisfaction (Burke et al., 2015) whereas workers with OWP easier lose control over their work, and are at higher risk for burnout (Vallerand et al., 2010). In addition to this, there are more recent efforts to redefine and operationalize work passion (Chen et al., 2020).
Extant theory on work passion has suggested that personality may be a major antecedent of work passion (Vallerand & Houlfort, 2003). Thus, we aim at advancing our understanding of how personality drives passion. A few existing studies on this topic have started to explore the main effects of personality traits on passion (Balon et al., 2013; Tosun & Lajunen, 2009). However, emerging research in trait interaction theory suggests that testing different trait constellations (e.g., interaction of conscientiousness and extraversion) may yield a more comprehensive picture about the influence of personality on work-related outcomes ( Judge & Erez, 2007; Burke et al., 2015). More recent work based on electronic performance monitoring at a small scale reported the positive impact of consciousness and extraversion on work passion (Hussain et al., 2021).
Whiles the role of job type and personality traits have been well studied, what remains as a gap is the interactions between personality traits in the contexts of different work environments. To address the current gap in the literature on how personality traits interact in predicting passion at work, our paper focuses on trait interactions. As self-control and passion are closely interlinked, we use self-regulation theory to predict the direction of the trait interaction (Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999; Ode et al., 2008). Accounting for situational specificity improves the validity of single traits (Tett et al., 1991; Barrick & Mount, 1991) as situational cues activate specific traits (Tett & Burnett, 2003; Tett & Guterman, 2000). To consider the impact of job environments on trait interactions to predict work passion, the RIASEC taxonomy classifies different job environments (Holland, 1959, 1985).
Our study aims at fostering our understanding of what drives passion at work by considering the impact of trait interactions in different job environments on work passion. We make three major contributions to the literature.
First, we advance the passion literature by investigating how individual differences influence work passion (Perrewé et al., 2014). Focusing on trait interactions extends previous passion research and allows for a finer-grained insight into the impact of different trait constellations on passion at work.
Second, we contribute to trait activation theory by testing the activating effect of job environments on trait interactions to predict work passion (Tett & Burnett, 2003). By identifying jobs that activate trait interactions we advance the current state since prior research has mostly focused on single traits and their interaction with the environment (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Tett et al., 1991). However, prior research suggests that trait interactions are important for understanding how configurations of personality traits interact with the environment in predicting work outcomes (Barrick & Mount, 2005; Penney et al., 2011).
Third, we build on previous trait interaction research (Ode et al., 2008) and apply self-regulation theory (Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999) to predict the direction of trait interactions. Further, our study demonstrates the potential of using online data sources with social science research. Since the data is drawn from the myPersonality project (Kosinski & Stillwell, 2016), a Facebook application with a focus on psychometric personality tests among a range of other questionnaires, we could take advantage of a large-scale data source drawn from a sample diverse in education, race, job, country, or political opinion.
Passion at Work
Building on self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2000), Vallerand et al. (2003) developed the concept of dualistic passion with the two dimensions of harmonious passion and obsessive passion. One of the motivational processes defining self-determination is the process of internalisation that adapts behaviours to one’s identity (Ryan & Deci, 2000). This dualistic conceptualization also applies to passion at work (Vallerand & Houlfort, 2003).
Individuals who are harmoniously passionate about their work experience an autonomous internalisation that creates a strong sense of volition (Deci & Ryan, 2000). They value their work as important as they voluntarily chose this job. Driven by their true interest, they gain pleasure from work. As they are in control of their job, their work does not profoundly interfere with other activities in their life enabling a successful work-life balance (Vallerand et al., 2003). When unable to do their work, employees with HWP can relax from work. During work, however, HWP enables a high concentration on the task, flow, and work satisfaction (Vallerand et al., 2010).
In contrast, OWP results from a controlled internalisation and is fuelled by intra- or interpersonal pressures (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Individuals who are obsessively passionate about their work consider their job to be highly central in their lives, for instance, due to social or organisational acceptance, salary increase, or promotions (Astakhova, 2015). Since such internal forces take over control of the person’s behaviour, employees are unable to completely disengage from thinking about work, which prevents full focus and inhibits work satisfaction (Mageau & Vallerand, 2007; Ratelle et al., 2004; Vallerand & Houlfort, 2003).
Consequently, HWP relates to a more positive work experience displayed in higher psychological well-being (Houlfort et al., 2014), facilitated psychological adjustment (Bélanger et al., 2015), and decreased burnout risk (Vallerand et al., 2010) compared to OWP. While OWP negatively relates to psychological work outcomes, its association to work performance is similarly positive as for HWP (Burke et al., 2015; Ho et al., 2011).
Overall, our article investigates the relationship between personality configurations (i.e., trait interactions) and the job context on the one hand, and HWP and OWP on the other hand. In the following, we review extant evidence and derive our hypotheses. An overview of our theoretical model and hypothesis is displayed in Fig. 1.
The Relationship Between the Big Five Personality Traits and Passion
To understand the underlying motivational forces of passion, we focus on the role of personality and personality configurations (Vallerand et al., 2003; Vallerand & Houlfort, 2003). The five-factor model (FFM) captures the complex construct of personality with five personality factors: Extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience (e.g. Fiske, 1949; Goldberg, 1990; Goldberg, 1981; Digman, 1990). Goldberg framed the label “Big Five” for these five factors (Goldberg, 1981, p. 159). Personality research that determines the impact of personality on work passion is very scant. The few studies focusing on personality to predict passion either used other personality frameworks than the FFM, such as the Eysenck’s Personality Questionnaire-Revised (EPQ-R), to operationalise personality (Tosun & Lajunen, 2009) or targeted not specifically work passion (Balon et al., 2013). In response to this state of the art, scholars have called for research that advances our understanding of how personality affects passion (Perrewé et al., 2014).
HWP and OWP differ in their relation to self-control, one superordinate dimension of the Big Five traits (Olson, 2005). Prior research derived superordinate dimensions by factoring out two superordinate dimensions – self-control and engagement – from the FFM (Carrol, 2002; Olson, 2005; Digman, 1997). Harmoniously passionate individuals can control their work passion, whereas obsessively passionate individuals find it difficult and often lose control of their work (Vallerand & Houlfort, 2003). This implies that self-control characteristics are decisive in differentiating between HWP and OWP and may contribute to explain the internalisation of work passion. Self-control strongly correlates with conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Conscientiousness has shown the strongest associations with constraint (McCrae & Löckenhoff, 2010) and its relation to work passion is in the focus first.
Conscientious employees comply with “socially prescribed impulse control” that supports delaying gratification, thinking before acting, and following rules (John & Srivastava, 1999, p. 121). Two facets of conscientiousness related to constraint capture these characteristics: Some name them premeditation and perseverance (Whiteside & Lynam, 2001), others label them deliberation and self-discipline (Costa Jr. & McCrae, 1992). The first facet entails the ability to not concede to first impulses and think before actions follow. The second facet refers to the ability to force oneself to reach aspired goals (McCrae & Löckenhoff, 2010).
Regarding work passion, the high self-control abilities may enable conscientious employees to keep control over their work passion such that work stays in harmony with other activities in life. This fits the definition of HWP in that employees excel at work but can release thoughts after work (Vallerand & Houlfort, 2003). With the ability to control the passion for work, conscientiousness may be in favour of HWP. The self-disciplined and deliberative behaviour of conscientiousness contrasts OWP which implies difficulties to control the job (Vallerand & Houlfort, 2003). Even though conscientious employees show strong persistence in even tedious tasks, deliberative forces may prevent OWP. Thus, we hypothesise:
Big Five Trait Interactions and Passion
The few existing studies examining the impact of personality traits on passion have overwhelmingly concentrated on the direct effects of personality traits (Balon et al., 2013; Tosun & Lajunen, 2009). However, prior research indicates that trait interactions exhibit enhanced predictive power compared to individual traits in studies examining work outcomes in the organizational context such as performance (e.g. Guay et al., 2013; Warr et al., 2005), counterproductive work behaviour (CWB) (e.g. Jensen & Patel, 2011; Zhou et al., 2014), volunteering (Carlo et al., 2005), helping behaviour (King et al., 2005), and occupational stress (Grant & Langan-Fox, 2006). Self-regulation theory helps to determine the interaction of conscientiousness with agreeableness and neuroticism to predict work passion.
In his classical work, Freud (1927) described self-regulation as reflecting on the constant conflict between the id and the ego, i.e., between the temptation to give in impulses and a rational force who inhibits doing so. Metcalfe and Mischel (1999) systematically studied these two processes and coined them as “hot systems” and “cool systems”. Hot systems respond to external stimuli in an emotional, impulsive, and reflexive way. Cool systems are characterized by cognitive, flexible, and integrated responses. The hot go system impedes self-control whereas the cool know system is the base for self-control (Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999). Metcalfe and Mischel (1999) proposed that both hot and cold processes exist in the brain and interact with each other.
Ode et al. (2008) predicted the direction of interactions between agreeableness and neuroticism on anger and aggression using the hot-system/cool-system framework. They proposed neuroticism to be a hot or impulsive influence, and agreeableness to be a cool or inhibiting influence concerning anger and aggression (Ode et al., 2008). We build on these findings of neuroticism as a hot influencer, and agreeableness as a cool influencer. We extend previous research by explicitly considering the interaction between agreeableness and neuroticism and how these traits influence conscientiousness to predict work passion.
Neuroticism as a Hot Influencer
Neurotic individuals often have nervous, sad, and tense feelings (John & Srivastava, 1999) accompanied by low self-esteem and rigid perfectionism (McCrae & Costa Jr., 1999). Moreover, neuroticism exhibits dysfunctional self-control that manifests in either under-control (Tangney et al., 2004; Whiteside & Lynam, 2001) or over-control (Schnabel et al., 2002). Under-control implies a feeling of urgency (Whiteside & Lynam, 2001) that results in impulsive behaviour. Over-control originates from anxiety or high self-consciousness that leads to inhibited behaviour and potentially to compulsive actions (McCrae & Löckenhoff, 2010). This reveals that self-control is more difficult for neurotic individuals (McCrae & Löckenhoff, 2010).
Studies exploring the interaction between conscientiousness and neuroticism found that given high conscientiousness, emotionally stable employees were more likely to engage in helping behaviour than highly neurotic employees (King et al., 2005). Moreover, the interaction was significant in predicting CWB on the organisational or individual level (Jensen & Patel, 2011; Bowling et al., 2011): Least CWB occurred among highly conscientious and low neurotic employees. This pattern remained significant in a triple interaction with organisational constraints (Zhou et al., 2014).
The dysfunctional self-control associated with neuroticism may prevent HWP that demands an intact self-control system (Vallerand & Houlfort, 2003). While conscientiousness may foster HWP due to its self-discipline and deliberation skills (e.g. McCrae & Löckenhoff, 2010), the dysfunctional self-control abilities of neuroticism (e.g. Whiteside & Lynam, 2001) may reduce HWP. On the other hand, OWP is reactive to impulses and associated with low self-control capabilities (Vallerand & Houlfort, 2003). The dysfunctional self-control of neuroticism may foster OWP whereas conscientiousness may decrease OWP such that neuroticism may undermine the self-control capabilities of conscientiousness. We hypothesise:
-
H2a: The positive relationship between conscientiousness and HWP will be stronger for low neuroticism than high neuroticism.
-
H2b: The negative relationship between conscientiousness and OWP will be stronger for low neuroticism than high neuroticism.
Agreeableness as a Cool Influencer
Agreeableness also showed associations to self-control (Tangney et al., 2004) or behavioural inhibition (Smits & Boeck, 2006) in prior research. Agreeable individuals are at ease absorbing desirable social rules, which results in courteous, thoughtful behaviour and the ability to control aggression. On the contrary, low agreeableness makes controlled behaviour less likely and neglecting social rules fosters antagonistic behaviour (McCrae & Löckenhoff, 2010). Regarding the interaction between conscientiousness and agreeableness on performance, supervisor ratings of workers high in both traits exceeded those of highly conscientious but low agreeable workers (Guay et al., 2013). This pattern was held for helping behaviour, where highly conscientious highly agreeable individuals were more likely to help colleagues than their less agreeable co-workers (King et al., 2005). Further, only a high level of both traits reduced CWB (Jensen & Patel, 2011).
The strong but not excessive self-control capabilities of agreeableness (e.g. Tangney et al., 2004) may strengthen HWP. Thus, both conscientiousness and agreeableness may positively influence HWP because of their strong relation to self-control skills. This implies that agreeableness may strengthen the hypothesised positive relation between conscientiousness and HWP. However, the ability of agreeableness to control emotions and not give in temptations immediately (Tangney et al., 2004) contrasts the low self-control associated with OWP (Vallerand & Houlfort, 2003) and may reduce the risk of OWP. Due to their strong self-control abilities, both agreeableness and conscientiousness may weaken OWP; we thus hypothesise:
-
H3a: The positive relationship between conscientiousness and HWP will be stronger for high agreeableness than low agreeableness.
-
H3b: The negative relationship between conscientiousness and OWP will be stronger for high agreeableness than low agreeableness.
How Trait Interactions Influence Passion Across Job Environments
Trait Activation Theory
Meta-analytic evidence suggests higher predictive validity of trait interactions when models of personality trait interactions include the job situations they are contextualized in (Zhou et al., 2014). Responding to outstanding calls for research to include situational moderators (Barrick & Mount, 2005; Penney et al., 2011; Tett & Christiansen, 2007) to advance our understanding of how job environments impact how trait interactions influence passion, we include job environments as situational moderators.
Trait activation theory considers how situations interact with personality traits (Tett & Burnett, 2003). The main idea of trait activation is an interactionist paradigm by positing that the expression of traits responds to specific trait-relevant situational cues (Tett & Guterman, 2000). Tett and Burnett (2003) proposed three trait-relevant situational cues at the task, social, and organisational levels. For this study, we focus on the task level which reflects individuals’ job demands. We thereby respond to research calls to explore the impact of task-level cues on personality (Penney et al., 2011). Also, investigating job demands on the task level is important due to their predictive relevance in the context of employee selection (Tett & Burnett, 2003).
Holland’s RIASEC Model
The RIASEC taxonomy is a common framework operationalising job demands on the task level (Tett & Burnett, 2003). Holland clustered occupational interests based on job descriptions in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) and found six major work environments: realistic (R), investigative (I), artistic (A), social (S), enterprising (E), and conventional (C), in short RIASEC. The result of Holland’s classification is a code with the first letter of three environments whereby the letter order determines which abilities and interests are most important for this job (Holland, 1959, 1985). Consistency captures the overlap or internal coherence between RIASEC environments and differentiation refers to the extent that two RIASEC environments are distinct from each other (Holland, 1985). Based on studies that explore relations between the Big Five and preference for RIASEC jobs (Fruyt & Mervielde, 1999), Tett and Burnett (2003) showed which RIASEC environments provide cues for the activation of traits: conventional, enterprising, artistic and investigative environments activate conscientiousness, whereby enterprising, social and realistic environments activate the trait agreeableness, and neurotic traits are activated in enterprising, conventional, realistic and investigative environments.
To increase the predictive validity of the trait interactions in predicting work passion, RIASEC environments ideally activate all three traits that are in the focus of this paper. Only the enterprising environment activates all three traits conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism (Fruyt & Mervielde, 1999; Tett & Burnett, 2003). Therefore, the enterprising environment is in the focus in the following. The enterprising environment has been described as an environment where both social and technical skills are required and where success and reputation are admired (Holland, 1985). People successful in this environment demonstrate a high level of social as well as technical skills filled with ambition and desire for success.
However, while the activating power of the enterprising environment holds for the individual traits, the effect on trait interactions is unclear. To derive hypotheses, we checked if also trait interactions become active in Enterprising environments. After classifying samples of previously explored trait interactions into RIASEC environments, we focused on interactions between conscientiousness and agreeableness (C*A) or neuroticism (C*N).
Trait Interactions in the Enterprising Environment
Trait interactions occurred primarily in enterprising environments (e.g. Guay et al., 2013; Warr et al., 2005). We observed the impact of the enterprising environment on the interaction between conscientiousness and neuroticism, in samples with both realistic and enterprising jobs (Jensen & Patel, 2011; King et al., 2005). Studies using mixed samples included a significant share of enterprising jobs (Bowling et al., 2011; Zhou et al., 2014). Extant findings indicate that the enterprising environment activates different outcomes such as helping behaviour (King et al., 2005) and CWB (Bowling et al., 2011; Jensen & Patel, 2011; Zhou et al., 2014). Hence, enterprising environments may also activate the hypothesised interaction between conscientiousness and neuroticism in predicting work passion. Specifically, the interaction between conscientiousness and neuroticism may be stronger for high enterprising than for low enterprising environments, so we hypothesise:
-
H4a: There is a three-way interaction between conscientiousness, neuroticism, and the enterprising environment in predicting HWP. The positive relationship between conscientiousness and HWP will be stronger for low neuroticism and a high enterprising environment than for low neuroticism and a low enterprising environment.
-
H4b: There is a three-way interaction between conscientiousness, neuroticism, and the enterprising environment in predicting OWP. The negative relationship between conscientiousness and OWP will be stronger for low neuroticism and a high enterprising environment than for low neuroticism and a low enterprising environment.
Regarding the influence of enterprising jobs on the interaction between conscientiousness and agreeableness, extant evidence in the literature predominantly found the C*A interaction in samples consisting of enterprising jobs. While most studies found the interaction between conscientiousness and agreeableness to predict performance (Guay et al., 2013; Guay et al., 2013; Warr et al., 2005), there is also evidence that this predictive validity also holds for other outcomes, such as CWB (Jensen & Patel, 2011) or helping behaviour (King et al., 2005). The diversity of outcomes and the fact that enterprising environments activate agreeableness and conscientiousness (Fruyt & Mervielde, 1999; Tett & Burnett, 2003) suggest that the enterprising environment may activate the hypothesised interaction to predict work passion. Hence, the interaction between conscientiousness and agreeableness may be stronger for high enterprising environments than for low enterprising environments. Thus we hypothesise:
-
H5a: There is a three-way interaction between conscientiousness, agreeableness, and enterprising environment in predicting HWP. The positive relationship between conscientiousness and HWP will be stronger for high agreeableness and a high enterprising environment than for high agreeableness and a low enterprising environment.
-
H5b: There is a three-way interaction between conscientiousness, agreeableness, and enterprising environment in predicting OWP. The negative relationship between conscientiousness and OWP will be stronger for high agreeableness and a high enterprising environment than for high agreeableness and a low enterprising environment.