“Influence of personality traits on creativity and innovative work behavior of employees”

In recent times, creativity and innovation have emerged as a captivating theme for many researchers. However, the influence of personality traits on creativity and innovative work behavior remains insufficiently explored. The aim of this study is to examine how personality traits influence the creativity and innovative work behavior of employees in private companies in Vietnam. Data were collected through a survey of 261 employees. The research hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM) with SPSS and AMOS 20 software. The results show that openness to experience, extraversion, and conscientiousness have a direct positive impact on creativity and an indirect effect on innovative work behavior through the mediating role of individual creativity. Among these, openness to experience is the most influential factor affecting creativity (β standardized = 0.418), followed by extraversion (β standardized = 0.229), and finally consci-entiousness (β standardized = 0.169). Creativity positively affects innovative work behavior (β standardized = 0.563). The relationship between neuroticism, agreeableness, and creativity is not supported. This study has made a significant theoretical contribution by sup-plementing evidence on the relationship between personality traits, creative potential, and innovative work behavior. Additionally, it offers practical implications for fostering creative activities and innovative work behavior in private companies in Vietnam.


INTRODUCTION
Increasing the competitiveness of an organization is closely tied to employee creativity and innovation.Therefore, creativity and innovation play a crucial role in helping businesses generate and sustain competitive advantages (Anderson et al., 2014;Liu et al., 2016;Hughes et al., 2018).Organizational innovation originates from the innovative capabilities of individuals.Yesil and Sozbilir (2013) posit that the innovation potential of employees is a crucial avenue for fostering organizational innovation.Promoting employee creativity and innovative work behavior is a topic of interest for both managers and researchers, who have focused on exploring factors related to the work environment, individual characteristics, and job-related factors.
The category of individual factors is crucial for fostering creativity and innovative work behavior among employees.Within this category, the personality traits of individuals are considered important.The Big Five personality trait model, as delineated by Goldberg (1990), has been widely employed in previous research to enhance one's comprehension of the personality structure.The impact of personality traits on creativity and innovation still yields many conflicting results (Jirásek & Sudzina, 2020).
The inconsistency in research results necessitates additional studies in diverse contexts to provide a more comprehensive understanding of these relationships.Yao and Li (2021) emphasize the need for further in-depth exploration of the relationship between personality and employees' creative behavior in the workplace.Additionally, creativity and innovation are distinct concepts with some degree of overlap and are sometimes used interchangeably (Sarooghi et al., 2015).Therefore, from an academic perspective, it is essential to separate creativity and innovation for examination within the same research framework.
In Vietnam, the relationship between personality traits, creativity, and work innovation behavior has been addressed, but not comprehensively.Therefore, simultaneously considering the relationship between Big Five personality traits, creativity, and employees' job innovation behavior within the same research framework is necessary.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES
There are several approaches to explaining creativity and innovation, particularly at the individual level.Some researchers argue that the creativity and innovative work behavior of employees depend on their personality traits.The five-factor model of personality, commonly known as the Big Five (Goldberg, 1990), is a model frequently employed to comprehend the mechanisms underlying personality structure.Anxiety, irritability, impulsivity, and moodiness are characteristics associated with individuals experiencing neuroticism (Goldberg, 1990).Neuroticism reflects the variability in individuals' ability to regulate and stabilize emotions (Zhao & Seibert, 2006).
People with a high level of neuroticism often exhibit lower self-esteem, diminished confidence, and vul-nerability to stress-inducing situations (Bontempo & Napier, 2011).Such individuals tend to be anxious due to their limited emotional regulation capabilities, experiencing distress, showing avoidance tendencies, and speaking less frequently (Zare & Flinchbaugh, 2019).Some researchers use the concept of emotional instability as a substitute for the neuroticism trait, as evidenced by Sung and Choi (2009).This personality trait shows fewer associations with creativity.H1: Extroversion positively affects employee creativity.
H3: Openness to experience positively affects employee creativity.
H6: Creativity positively affects innovative work behavior.
Figure 1 shows a proposed research model.

METHODOLOGY
The scales used in this study were inherited from Goldberg (1992) This study sampled 261 employees of private companies in Vietnam through a convenience sampling method.To achieve this sample size, the study distributed 300 survey forms, then collected and screened them, eliminating those that did not meet the requirements.The survey participants were selected from employees working in private organizations as innovative and creative activities are more distinct in private organizations compared to those in the public sector.
SPSS and AMOS 20 software were employed for data analysis.Analytical techniques included testing the reliability of the scales using Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and hypotheses testing through structural equation modeling (SEM).

RESULTS
The sample consisted of 46.4% males and 53.6% females.The majority of the participants were aged between 26 and 35, accounting for 65.2% (Table 1).After achieving satisfactory reliability for all measurement scales, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted.The results revealed that extraction with seven factors showed a KMO coefficient of 0.901 and explained the variance with 71.83%.
In the reliability testing and exploratory factor analysis step, variable IWB5 was eliminated due to its lack of discriminant validity.After removing variable IWB5, the criteria (convergence value and discriminant value), according to Hair et al. (2014), for the test were met.
To assess the measurement model, the study performed a confirmatory factor analysis.The results indicated a high level of fit for the measurement model, with indices meeting the requirements according to the standards proposed by Hair et al. (2014).Specifically, the values were (Figure 2): CMIN/df = 1.551;P-value = 0.000; CFI = 0.953; TLI = 0.947; RMSEA = 0.046.
To evaluate the fit of the structural model and test the research hypotheses, a linear structural equation model was utilized.The results of the structural model analysis showed the indices: CMIN/ df = 2.253; P-value = 0.000; CFI = 0.89; TLI = 0.88; RMSEA = 0.069.Although these indices are slightly lower than the recommended 0.9, they are still within an acceptable range.Additionally, all composite reliability (CR) indices were greater than 0.8, and the average variance extracted (AVE) coefficients were all above 0.5.

DISCUSSION
The results of this study indicate that three personality traits influence creativity, namely extroversion, openness to experience, and conscientiousness.Among these, openness to experience has the most positive and strong impact on creativity (β standardized = 0.418, Sig.= 0.000).This finding aligns with Mohd Rasdi (2023) also found a positive relationship between openness and creativity.They suggest that the influence of openness on creativity is the strongest among personality traits.Jirásek and Sudzina (2020) emphasize that among the five personality traits, openness to experience is confirmed to have the strongest impact on employee creativity.
Personality traits, especially openness to experience, play a significant role in influencing creativity (β standardized = 0.418, Sig.= 0.000).Jirásek and Sudzina (2020) reported a positive relationship between extroversion and creativity, although the effect was statistically significant but relatively weaker compared to openness to experience.results regarding the relationship between these traits and creativity.Specifically, Kaufman and Beghetto (2013) reported that agreeableness positively influences creativity, while Sung and Choi (2009), Silvia et al. (2014), Stock et al. (2016), Kaspi-Baruch (2019), Zare and Flinchbaugh (2019), and Jirásek and Sudzina (2020) concluded that this influence is not statistically significant.Similarly, the positive impact of neuroticism on creativity, reported by Sung and Choi (2009), was found not statistically significant by Zare and Flinchbaugh (2019) and Jirásek and Sudzina (2020).Thus, the findings of this study align with Zare and Flinchbaugh (2019) and Jirásek and Sudzina (2020) that the impact of agreeableness and neuroticism on creativity is not statistically significant.
This study extends the positive relationship between creativity and innovative work behavior.The results strongly support this relationship (β standardized = 0.878, Sig.= 0.000).At the individual level, Sarooghi et al. (2015) identified a strong positive correlation between creativity and innovation, and this finding reaffirms that relationship.Furthermore, three personality traits, namely extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience, directly influence creativity and indi-rectly influence innovative work behavior through the mediating role of creativity.
This study has several inherent limitations.The convenience sampling method was employed, potentially affecting the overall reliability of the study.Future research could utilize different sampling methods, such as probability sampling, to enhance the reliability of findings.Next, the study exclusively focused on employees in private companies, limiting the generalizability of the results to other types of organizations.To achieve a more comprehensive understanding, future research could extend its scope to various company structures for thorough comparison and analysis.Finally, the relationship between personality traits, such as agreeableness, neuroticism, and individual creativity, remains complex.Therefore, this relationship needs to be further explored in various contexts to gain a deeper understanding.The study concentrated solely on personality factors to examine their influence on creativity and innovation.Given that creativity and innovation are influenced by multifaceted factors, further research should explore additional dimensions to gain a comprehensive insight into the creativity and innovative work behavior of employees.

CONCLUSION
The objective of this study was to examine the influence of five personality traits on creativity and innovative work behavior among employees in private organizations.The analysis indicates that three personality traits positively affect creativity: extraversion, openness to experience, and conscientiousness.Subsequently, creativity positively influences innovative work behavior.The tests of the mediating effects reveal that creativity plays an intermediary role between extraversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and the innovative work behavior of employees.This paper makes several significant theoretical contributions.Extraversion and openness to experience positively influence employee creativity in private organizations.The findings supplement theoretical evidence on the relationship between extraversion and openness to experience with creativity at the individual level.Additionally, conscientiousness was found to have a positive relationship with creativity.Although this trait yielded inconsistent results in previous studies, this paper demonstrates a positive trend in line with the conscientious nature attributed to Vietnamese employees.Vietnamese individuals are believed to possess traits of diligence, perseverance, and dedication to their work.When they work with dedication, the likelihood of receiving support from colleagues and managers increases, thereby enhancing their creative capabilities.
Based on the analysis of the influence of personality traits on creativity and innovative work behavior of employees, the study proposes several practical implications.Personality traits have a clear positive influence on creativity.Therefore, organizations aiming to enhance employees' creativity should focus on these personality traits during recruitment or create an environment that allows employees to have optimal experiences in their work.The study emphasizes that conscientiousness remains a significant personality trait in promoting creativity and subsequently leading to innovative work behavior.Creativity is considered the initial stage of innovation, and individual creativity plays a crucial role in promoting organizational innovation.Individual creativity can lead to employees' innovative work behavior, thereby contributing to organizational innovation.Hence, attracting and encouraging individuals in the organization to generate creative ideas and transform them into innovative activities is deemed essential.Personality traits not only directly affect creativity but also indirectly influence innovative work behavior.Therefore, to promote both creativity and innovation, openness, extraversion, and conscientiousness should be considered in workforce planning and selection processes.

Table 1 .
Description of the research sample

Table 2 .
Reliability of measurement scales