Are organisational defensive routines harmful to the relationship between personality and organisational learning?

Abstract

This paper examines the interaction effect between a selection of personality traits — i.e. conscientiousness, openness to experience and neuroticism — and organizational defensive routines (ODRs) on organizational learning. The data sample included 351 employees from a wide range of industries in the UK. In line with the current literature, we hypothesized that ODRs act as a moderator between selected employee personality traits and learning. Though the findings do not support our hypotheses on the moderation effects, we could isolate an unexpected positive link between ODRs and organizational learning which merits attention and further research. Implications for the theory and limitations of the study are discussed.