Date of Award

Summer 8-2011

Degree Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Economic and Workforce Development

Committee Chair

Chad Miller

Committee Chair Department

Economic and Workforce Development

Committee Member 2

Brent Hales

Committee Member 2 Department

Economic and Workforce Development

Committee Member 3

Brian Richard

Committee Member 3 Department

Economic and Workforce Development

Abstract

Personality assessment has been established through previous literature as a viable tool in organizational contexts in different job fields (Hough & Dilchert, 2010; Rothstein & Goffin, 2006). The field of economic development has seen little application of personality assessment to aspiring professionals within the discipline. This research hoped to establish distinct personality typologies within economic development by bifurcating the field into two sectors of (a) business recruitment, retention, and expansion and (b) entrepreneurship developers and community developers. Participants were asked to complete the Personal Preferences Self-Description Questionnaire (Thompson, 1996) after distinguishing within which of the two realms they were employed. Results show no significant difference on any of the four Jungian personality preferences between groups indicating false inferences that the two groups maintain different personalities. Future researchers should consider evaluating economic developers as one entity rather than differentiating sectors.

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