Project Managers are primarily responsible for the results of a project, and their performance is commonly associated with project success (PMI, 2013; ANANTATMULA, 2015). The duties of a Project Manager include coordinating and integrating activities in several functional lines and managing communications between the parties interested in the results of the project (PMI, 2013). So they can meet the project objectives and the expectations of the concerned parties, Project Managers must have technical, team management, negotiation skills and understanding of the organization’s policy (PMI, 2013) .

Kerzner (2010) states that project managers need to have behavioral skills compatible with the management function. However, studies on the profile of these professionals have focused on “hard skills” – technical aspects, which are easily measurable (EL-SABAA, 2001; THOMAS; MENGEL, 2008; KERZNER, 2010; THAL; BEDINGFIELD, 2010). Empirical studies involving “soft skills” – such as resilience, empathy, collaboration, and communication, based on emotional intelligence – are still scarce (KERZNER, 2010; BAKHSHESHI; NEJAD, 2011) .

Once there is an understanding of the contribution of behavioral aspects of project managers for project success (BERINGER, JONAS, KOCK, 2013), the importance to understand the profile of these professionals grows, especially regarding aspects of their personality. Allport (1961) defines personality as a dynamic organization within the psychophysical systems of individuals that determine their human behavior and thinking. According to Schaufeli, Maslach, and Marek (2017), personality determines human behavior and, more specifically, professional behavior .

Personality is an extensive research area that has been conceptualized by several theoretical perspectives that contribute to the understanding of individual differences regarding individual behavior and experiences (JOHN, SRIVASTAVA, 1999; SCHULTZ, SCHULTZ, 2016) .

In an ideal situation, scholars would have time and resources to explore, by multiple instruments, the personality of an individual or groups of individuals. However, circumstances are often not ideal, directing researchers to choose simplified models and succinct measuring instruments (GOSLING, RENTFROW, SWANN JR, 2003). After decades of research, a consensus was established that, by a model of five predicting personality factors (or traits), it would be possible to achieve adequate confidence and robustness levels in personality analyses (HURTZ, DONAVAN, 2000) .

The five factors do not imply that differences in personality can be reduced to only five traits, but that these five dimensions represent personality in a broad level of abstraction and that each dimension is a summary of a set of specific personality traits (JOHN; SRIVASTAVA, 1999). These five factors became known as the Big Five personality traits and are classified as: Extroversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Instability, and Openness to Experience (MCCRAE; JOHN, 1992). Chart 1 summarizes the personality traits and the features related to them .

Chart 1
Features associated to the Big Five personality traits

Source: Srivastava (1999, p. 100)

Extroversion captures the comfort level with relationships. Extroverts tend to be gregarious, assertive, and sociable. Introverts tend to be reserved, shy, and quiet. Agreeableness refers to an individual’s propensity to love others. Highly amiable people are cooperative and confident. People with low Agreeableness are cold, unpleasant, and antagonistic. Conscientiousness is a measure of reliability. A highly conscious person is responsible, organized, reliable, and persistent. Those with a low score on this dimension are easily distracted, disorganized, and unreliable. Emotional Instability (neuroticism) is a measure of a person’s ability not to withstand stress. Those with high emotional instability tend to be nervous, anxious, depressed, and insecure. People with emotional stability (low instability) tend to have calmness, self-reliance, and certainty. Opening to Experience considers a range of interests and fascination with novelty. Open people are creative, curious, and artistically sensitive. The people who are on the other end (little open to experiences) are conventional and find comfort in the familiar and routine .

Professionals can assume project management positions having different levels of education and different levels of knowledge on the subject. The higher the education, the longer the time dedicated to obtaining knowledge. There is no definitive answer to the required level of knowledge to manage projects, although one knows that a project manager must have relevant knowledge on the technology involved in the project to be successful (EL-SABAA, 1999). On the other hand, personality traits can affect the choice of people by their experiences and educational trajectories (ROBERTS et al., 2006). Therefore, it is expected that project managers with different levels of education will have different personality traits, leading to the hypothesis :

H1: There are differences in personality traits of project managers with different education levels .

H1a: There are differences in the Extroversion personality trait of project managers with different education levels .

H1b: There are differences in the Agreeableness personality trait of project managers with different education levels .

H1c: There are differences in the Conscientiousness personality trait of project managers with different education levels .

H1d: There are differences in the Emotional Instability personality trait of project managers with different education levels .

H1e: There are differences in the Openness to Experience personality trait of project managers with different education levels .

McCrae and Costa Jr. (1994, 1997) state that personality traits change with the development of the individual but reach stable levels around 30 years old. Men and women aged between 20 and 30 years become less emotional and less adventurous, but more cooperative and disciplined. Stability occurs in the five domains of personality and this applies virtually to all people regardless of race or gender .

Some studies argue that personality traits do not stabilize and keep changing from the middle age (HELSON, JONES, KWAN, 2002; HELSON, KWAN, 2000; SRIVASTAVA, JOHN, GOSLING, POTTER, 2003; ROBERTS et al, 2006). Roberts, Walton, and Viechtbauer (2006) argue that personality traits continue to develop after 30 years, especially Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience. Therefore, this is a matter still under discussion in the scientific world .

Considering that personality can continue to develop over the years, and that professional experience also develops over the years, it is expected that the personality traits of project managers with different times of experience will be different .

H2: There is a difference in the personality traits of project managers with different times of professional experience .

H2a: There is a difference in the Extroversion personality trait of project managers with different times of professional experience .

H2b: There is a difference in the Agreeableness personality trait of project managers with different times of professional experience .

H2c: There is a difference in the Conscientiousness personality trait of project managers with different times of professional experience .

H2d: There is a difference in the Emotional Instability personality trait of project managers with different times of professional experience .

H2e: There is a difference in the Openness to Experience personality trait of project managers with different times of professional experience .

Additionally, we aim to verify if project management experience also differs regarding the personality traits of project managers. Thus, hypothesis 3 was proposed, which can also be detailed for each of the five traits :

H3: There is a difference in the personality traits of project managers with different times of experience in project management .

Project managers can choose to follow a career in different sectors of the economy. Argyriades (2003) states that professionals, when choosing to follow a career in a certain sector, public or private, make this decision by rational reasons and self-interest, in search for personal rewards. However, much is still being discussed about the possibility of individual choosing their careers in the public sector by reasons related to altruism and public interest and not necessarily by economic factors (FREDERICKSON, HART, 1985; PERRY, WISE, 1990). This type of choice can vary significantly between countries. In Brazil, for example, the public sector is valued as a low-risk career option for involving considerable economic rewards in addition to job security .

Lyons et al. (2006) compared the values and commitments of public and private sector professionals and did not find differences in what they called “general values” (achievement, conformity, incentive, benevolence, among others), but they found differences in “specific values” such as contribution to society, opportunity for growth, organizational commitment, prestige, and intellectual stimulation among professionals of these two sectors .

Bilsky and Schwartz (1994) identified significant associations between personality traits and personal values. Research shows that personality traits are significantly related to professional performance when the personality is properly aligned to the values of the work (HOGAN, HOLLAND, 2003; ROBERTS et al., 2006). This indicates that people who seek jobs and fit their criteria experience better levels of work performance, success, and satisfaction during their life (JUDGE; ZAPATA, 2015) .

By these findings, it is expected to find significant differences in the personality traits of project managers working in the public and private sectors, based on the values that underlie their choices .

H4: There is a difference in the personality traits of project managers who work in the public sector and in the private sector .

H4a: There is a difference in the Openness to Experience personality trait of project managers who work in the public sector and in the private sector .

H4b: There is a difference in the Agreeableness personality trait of project managers who work in the public sector and in the private sector .

H4c: There is a difference in the Conscientiousness personality trait of project managers who work in the public sector and in the private sector .

H4d: There is a difference in the Emotional Instability personality trait of project managers who work in the public sector and in the private sector .

H4e: There is a difference in the Extroversion personality trait of project managers who work in the public sector and in the private sector .

Personality measures require relatively long questionnaires. Long questionnaires generate resistance of respondents because of the time required to fill them. To solve this, the construction of personality tests moved toward shorter measures (RAMMSTEDT; OLIVER, 2007). In this study, we chose a level of abstraction based on the five personality traits, measured in a simplified way, using a single item scale .

Openness to Experience was operationalized with the statement “I’m open to novelty,” supported by studies that emphasize the need for openness to new ways of communication, adaptability, experimentation with new solutions to problems in projects (PMI, 2013; DAVIS, 2011) and the environment of uncertainty that challenge the manager every new project (EL-SABAA, 2000) .

Conscientiousness was operationalized with the statement “I am organized.” The way project managers organize their projects is a portrait of their managerial competence (TURNER, MÜLLER, 2005). Project managers with strong organizational traits tend to be more thorough and disciplined (BAKHSHESHIL, NEJAD, 2011) .

We decided to operationalize the trait Emotional Instability by its inverse, Emotional Stability, with the statement “I am emotionally stable.” Emotional competencies are one of the most important cognitive skills attributed to project managers (DAVIS, 2011). Their emotional stability is linked to their leadership skills (TURNER, MÜLLER, 2010; TURNER, MÜLLER, 2005) and their ability to work in turbulent environments, typical in projects (PETTERSEN, 1991) .

The Extroversion trait was operationalized with the statement “I am extroverted,” and Agreeableness, with the statement “I am amiable,” as addressed by the traditional theories about personality .

Chart 2 presents the single item scale used to measure the five personality traits of project managers in this research. A five-point Likert-type scale was used, with point 1 equivalent to “totally disagree” and point 5 to “totally agree,” which shows good performance in similar researches (HAIR et al., 2009) .

Chart 2
Operationalization of the Big Five personality traits of project managers

Source: Prepared by the authors (2017)

Schooling was subdivided into three categories: “higher education (complete or incomplete),” “specialization,” and “master’s degree or PhD.” Time of Professional Experience and Time of Experience as Project Manager were operationalized with three options: “up to 5 years,” “between 5.1 and 15 years,” and “over 15 years.” Sector of Activity was operationalized with two categories: “public sector” and “private sector .”

The questionnaire with closed-ended questions used as data collection instrument (see Appendix) was divided into two parts. The first part contains questions to characterize the respondent profile regarding training, time of professional experience, time of experience as project manager, and sector of activity. The second part contains questions related to the respondent’s personality traits .

The survey was conducted with project managers working in Brazil. The link to the electronic questionnaire was sent to the regional associations of project management (PMI – Project Management Institute) in the states of the Southeast region and the Federal District, since these regions concentrate much of the country’s economic activity. 244 responses were collected from project managers aged between 25 and 60 years; 96% of them had full degree in the areas of information technology (61%), engineering (23%), administration (11%), and others (5%). Of the total professionals who responded to the survey, 60% manage projects for over 5 years, 66% work in the private sector, and 34% in the public sector .

We present below the results of hypothesis testing. The first tests carried out were related to schooling hypotheses H1: There is a difference in the personality traits of project managers with different levels of schooling. Table 2 presents the results .

Table 2
Hypothesis testing for H1 – Mean difference between personality traits and schooling

Source: Prepared by the authors (2017Note: *Significance at 5%.

Hypothesis H1 was partially supported. There is evidence that Openness to Experience (H1a; p-value=0.002) and Conscientiousness (H1c; p-value=0.000) have significantly different means in the comparison between project managers with different levels of schooling. Project managers with complete or incomplete higher education show lower levels of Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience compared to managers with higher level of schooling. Hypotheses H1a, H1b, and H1d were refuted.

We present below the hypothesis testing regarding professional experience: H2: There is a difference in the personality traits of project managers with different times of professional experience and H3: There is a difference in the personality traits of project managers with different times of project management experience .

Hypotheses H2 and H3 were partially supported. Table 3 shows that only the Agreeableness personality trait presented significant mean difference (p-value=0.034) for the time of professional experience .

Table 3
ANOVA results of hypothesis testing for H2 – Time of professional experience

Source: Prepared by the authors (2017)Note: *Significance at 5%.

The same can be observed in Table 4 for the time of project management experience – only the Agreeableness trait presented significant mean difference (p-value=0.008). Tables 3 and 4 show that project managers with longer time of experience have higher levels of Agreeableness (mean=4.33 and 4.54, respectively) .

Table 4
ANOVA Results of hypothesis testing for H3 – Time of project management experience

Source: Prepared by the authors (2017)Note: *Significance at 5%.

We present below the hypothesis testing results for H4: There is a difference in the personality traits of project managers who work in the public sector and in the private sector. The results show that the hypothesis was partially supported (Table 5). Of the five personality traits of project managers who work in the two sectors, only Agreeableness showed no statistically significant mean difference (p-value > 0.05) .

Table 5 shows that project managers who work in the private sector present higher levels of Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Extroversion than managers who work in the public sector .

Table 5
Hypothesis testing results for H4 – Public sector and private sector

Source: Prepared by the authors (2017)

Table 3
Summary of the results of hypothesis testing of mean differences

Source: Prepared by the authors (2016)