How your job shapes your personality: DSEB Research Award goes to Selma Kadić-Maglajlić
This year’s DSEB Research Award goes to a researcher behind far-reaching studies on how work conditions influence our behaviour and personalities
When we talk about personality at work, we often assume it is something people bring with them. Fixed traits shaped long before they meet their first customer or colleague.
But associate professor Selma Kadić-Maglajlić’s research shows that the relationship runs both ways: jobs also shape people, especially those in B2B sales.
“In simple terms, it means that personality is not something employees only bring with them into a sales job; jobs themselves can change people,” she explains.
Her work documents how demanding workplace conditions influence B2B sales employees.
For example, long sales cycles, complex customer demands, tough negotiations and heavy reliance on incentive-based pay “can gradually increase traits such as neuroticism,” she says.
Over time, these changes affect how employees cope with uncertainty, interact with customers and sustain performance.
To Selma Kadić-Maglajlić, receiving the DSEB Research Award is meaningful because it signals recognition for research that does not shy away from sensitive organisational realities.
“It signals that research which looks at the less comfortable sides of markets such as pressure, bias or ethical tension is not only accepted but valued. It’s a recognition that asking difficult questions about how market interactions affect people is an important part of advancing marketing as a discipline,” Selma Kadić-Maglajlić says.
Studying what organisations prefer not to see
A recurring theme across Selma Kadić-Maglajlić’ work is the examination of uncomfortable phenomena like xenophobia, incivility and emotional pressure that often remain unnoticed or unspoken.
“These issues are often uncomfortable to talk about, which is exactly why they tend to remain hidden or even normalised in organisations,” she says.
Using large-scale quantitative data, her studies capture both individual attitudes and the structural conditions that enable harmful behaviour.
These insights challenge common managerial assumptions. One example is the belief that performance and well-being problems can be solved through hiring resilient personalities. As she puts it:
“The key insight is that recruitment alone cannot solve performance or well-being problems. Our research shows that the way jobs are structured, managed and supported plays a crucial role in shaping employees over time.”
She argues that mental health support should be seen as integral to job design rather than optional.
“Just as construction companies budget for protective equipment, sales organisations need to invest in mental health support as a basic part of responsible job design.”
Misconceptions about frontline roles
Selma emphasises that many organisations misunderstand the nature of frontline work.
“One of the biggest misconceptions is that pressure, emotional strain and constant availability are simply ‘part of the sales job’. Organisations often underestimate how cumulative and damaging these demands can be over time.”
Another misconception, she notes, is “that resilience is purely an individual trait, rather than something shaped by leadership, job design and organisational systems.”
Her work extends beyond traditional marketing boundaries, addressing public health and social cohesion as well.
“More broadly, I want the research to support leaders, educators and policymakers in designing systems that reduce harm, rather than simply managing its consequences,” she says.
Research with societal impact
Her recent studies have travelled well beyond academic circles.
Insights from her work on how occupational conditions shape personality have been featured in outlets such as The Conversation, Fast Company and Yahoo, and have led to invitations for practitioner talks, industry events and even a TEDx presentation.
Her research on sales-service roles is used in executive training and has been discussed with sales leaders in Denmark and abroad, while her work on vaccination identities contributes new behavioural perspectives to public health communication.
Together, these contributions, spanning frontline work, societal challenges and public debate, illustrate why Selma Kadić-Maglajlić receives the 2026 DSEB Research Award.
