Personality traits, surface traits, organisational culture and performance outcomes of the call centre agents in the Klang Valley / Mohmad Najid Ramli

The main thrust of this present study is to identify the antecedents and underlying dimensions of performance outcomes of the call-centre agents in the Klang Valley. The data for the provision of the empirical evidence was drawn from the call centres of five participating banks namely, Maybank, CIMB, RHB, Bank Islam, and Public Bank. The two underlying dimensions of performance outcomes are customer service satisfaction and job performance. Additionally, the two antecedents of performance outcomes were basic personality traits and surface traits. The first antecedent is composed of two underlying dimensions namely customer orientation and adaptability whereas the second antecedent is made up of two underlying dimensions namely customer orientation and adaptability. The sampling design was quota sampling of which the gender composition was 60.0 per cent female and 40 per cent male. This present study strives towards explicating social phenomena by embracing the methodological principles of positivism within which explanation, evaluation, prediction and testing of theories which were hypothesised by earlier researchers. The five underpinning theories for the conceptual model are the resource-based theory, equity theory, social exchange theory, agency theory and organisational culture. The conceptual model depicts 14 direct relationships between pairs of the six underlying dimensions of which 12 were found to be significantly related. In addition, personality was found to mediate the relationship between emotional intelligence and adaptability whereas customer orientation was found to mediate the relationship between emotional intelligence and customer service satisfaction. However, adaptability was found to mediate the relationships between emotional intelligence and customer service satisfaction, customer orientation and customer service satisfaction as well as personality and job performance. Organisational culture was found to moderate the relationships between emotional intelligence and personality, customer orientation and adaptability as well as adaptability and job performance. This present study is founded upon the parameters of the proposed five research questions. The data analyses were conducted by a process of multivariate analysis using structural equation modelling (SEM) and AMOS (Analysis of Moment Structures) software package Version 22.0. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were performed to validate the scales. The descriptive analyses were performed on all the underlying dimensions and the demographic profile of the 380 respondents.