Studies of personality at work have made significant contributions to theory and applied practice in work and organizational settings. This review article proposes that there are also reciprocal influences between core personality science and research on personality in work and organizations, each drawing on insights from the other. Following this tradition, the objective of this article is to review key foundations of research in a way that informs and critically reflects on state-of-the-art evidence in four main themes: (1) conceptualization and structure of personality at work, (2) personality assessment in work settings, (3) personality processes and dynamics at work, and (4) impact of situations on personaliy at work. Critically reflections on key implications, and directions for future research are presented, anticipating how the field may adapt to the changing nature of work and society.

Rather than focusing on their dynamic interplay, research in I/O psychology has mostly focused on either person-level variables as predictors of work behaviors or the impact of situational variables on employees’ behaviors. By studying person and situation variables independently or by treating the situation as fixed, previous studies have largely failed to capture the active role employees take in affecting and managing their work situations. This raises the question of how adequately current research that focuses on either the person or the situation captures the reality of work life. To address this issue, this paper aims to provide a starting point for the integration of person-situation interactions at work into an overarching process model (i.e., Person-Situation Navigation Mechanisms Framework; Rauthmann & Sherman, 2016), and illustrates how previous research on I/O constructs can be positioned within this framework.