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The impact of personality, culture (British and Greek) and coping strategies upon measures of performance.

The focus ofthis thesis is to address the impact of personality (i.e., achievement strivings,impatience/ irritability), culture (British and Greek) and coping strategies – polychronicityand Type A behaviours – upon measures of performance (i.e., speed andaccuracy). Key findings include theculturally differentiated role of achievement strivings and impatience/irritability upon speed (as well as Type A behavioural orientations towardswork). For example, increased levels of impatience/ irritability across Greekrespondents significantly correlated with faster reaction times (speed). Thisrelationship failed to manifest across British respondents.

A specificresearch gap identified concerns and the need for a more clarified way toconceptualise multi-dimensional ‘coping strategy’ constructs, i.e.,polychronicity and Type A Behaviour. A framework is proposed to more accuratelyconceptualise the intricate interplay involving multidimensional constructs ofpersonal and cultural expression, i.e., polychronicity and Type A behaviourpatterns by introducing ‘EMAC’: The ‘Emotion-Mind-Action Complex’. Expressionsof culture and personality are analysed in terms of emotion, mind and action,and provide unique sources of variance. The complex of emotion, mind and actionis interrelated and exists as a unit within an individual entity. It is arguedthat congruence across these three dimensions enables proficientactivity-to-time management (see glossary for a definition of ‘expression’ andfor its relations with emotion, mind and action).

The EMACframework as inspired by Bandura’s (1977a,b, 1982) social cognitive learningtheory is easy to use and aids in differentiating across complex constructspertaining to multidimensional ‘coping strategies’. Taylor, Locke, Lee & Gist (1984) found thatthe performance of multiple projects simultaneously is a characteristic featureof the Type A behaviour pattern. This is also a feature of polychronic cultures(Hall, 1989). However, though these two constructs (polychronicity and Type A)are similarly related in terms of multi-tasking behaviour, they are open to differ in terms of contributory cognitive and/ or emotional sources. Behaviours may also manifest from repetitivesyndromes of conditioned response, i.e., a ‘habit’ or a ‘reaction’ (Dispenza,2006). People culturally polychronic are event-oriented and prefer to perform many activities atonce, whereas for ‘Type As’ the performance of many activities at once may bebetter interpreted as a response to roleoverload. Findings convey a more informed understanding of copingstrategies; specifically that are made up of ‘emotion’, ‘mind’, and ‘action’. Hence,by accounting for the triad, dialectical approach, this thesis also offers anew way of thinking to innovate upon the research efforts currently deployed,i.e., those more diametric and bi-dimensional.

This thesis alsoaddresses the misconceptions relating to the ‘Type A Behaviour Pattern’, which conceptualise the overt behaviour pattern as a personality trait (see glossary fordefinitional clarity of key conceptualisations). A key contribution to researchis a new complex of interaction concerning traits of personality (i.e.,achievement strivings; impatience/ irritability) alongside behaviour patterns(i.e., Type A behavioural orientations towards work), in a way unlike any otherresearch effort to date. To build upon theory, due to the tentative testing ofnewly proposed relations, research contributions are enabled viaadministrations of performance and survey testing. As the majority of relationsinvestigated are yet to be addressed by international research efforts, certainstatistical analysis techniques confirmatory in theoretical design, i.e.,LISREL (Linear Structural Equations), EQS and AMOS (Analysis of MomentStructures), though commonplace in the international marketing research arena,are inappropriate (Byrne, 2001). Without a defensible theory, LISREL (AMOS) isinsupportable, and multivariate analyses constitute the main mode of dataanalysis.

An additionalframework (Chapter 4; Fig. 4.3A) is proposed to guide the reader throughhypotheses testing – A ‘Framework to Examine Culture’s Management of Timeacross Global Schools of Thought’. To limit the effect of extraneous variables,factors relating to space (i.e., within the individual, including ‘personality’,akin to matters of emotion and mind); context (i.e., high context/ little needfor the spoken word, or low context/ greater need for the spoken word); and thenature of one’s environment and task (i.e., called for actions and behaviours)are accounted for. Of interest, a number of the variables analysed have notbeen previously examined for cross-cultural variability, i.e., ‘performancespeed and accuracy’ vis-à-vis ‘subjective time estimates’, Type A behaviouralorientations towards stress or work, and the ‘perceived control of time’. Yet,to provide a standard, benchmark of comparative, theoretical research results,objective barometers of performance-related speed and accuracy, easilyreplicable across differing cultures and contexts are employed.