What About the Diversity of Psychological Types? A Study with Emerging Economy Executive Education Alumni

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INTRODUCTION
At first it might seem unusual to investigate the intersections of the corporate world, in which paradigms of utility and objectivity are key, and the theory of psychological types that was developed by Carl Gustav Jung in his attempt to create an analytical psychology that could be applied to those therapeutic practices that consider subjective human experiences.In proposing an understanding of human behavior, however, the Jungian theoretical framework has been increasingly considered in the professional context, notably as a device for identifying psychological types (Myers, 2016;Jung, 2013b;Myers & Myers, 1997).
This interest is most likely associated with contemporary questions about the ability of the Fordist production and regulation model to provide effective responses to the fall in overall productivity levels.This has brought the relevance of business and management models to the fore and resulted in innovative products and services that can add value and enable organizations to enjoy comparative advantages.The emphasis in this movement is on attracting, developing, and retaining professionals and managers who have personalities and are endowed with creative skills, as opposed to those with profiles that are typically associated with a "command-control" management style (Lipietz, 1997;Harvey, 1992).
The central motivation behind this article emerges in the light of this situation, the proposal being to investigate the place of the psychological types most linked to innovation and creation contexts in current organizational environments.In other words, to what extent is the discourse that defends the relevance of different profiles, those that can stimulate the construction of empowering contexts that are closer to connecting the hard and soft skills that are the catalysts of creation and innovation, found in the reality of the organizations (Campbell, 2015;White, Gunasekaran, Roy, 2014)?
For authors like Strick and Dijksterhuis (2011, p. 28), new organizational arrangements and configurations point to the importance of having working teams that can articulate the attributes of professional competency and that mix technical knowledge, objectivity and instrumental reasoning with intuition and human feelings, since feelings and intuition have, for a long time, been relegated to the second or third planes, if not banished altogether from our organizational contexts.
In this scenario, these authors define intuition as the " [. . . ] feeling of knowing what should be done, without necessarily being able to say why it should" (Strick & Dijksterhuis, 2011, p. 28).Similarly, when Dane and Pratt (2007, p. 40) advocate the role of human subjectivity as an element that is vital in innovative organizations, they highlight intuitions as "[. . .] affectively charged judgments that arise through rapid, nonconscious and holistic associations." Authors such as Dollinger, Palaskonis, Pearson (2004) also indicate the growing importance attributed to another psychological function, feeling, which is understood by the authors to be judgments based on the combination of personal values, relationships of empathy and otherness.According to these authors, this combination is associated with higher levels of predisposition towards creativity and innovation.
Despite intuition and human feelings being commonly referred to as central attributes of individual competency, in practice they seem to be limited to diagnoses and analyses that are related to processes of identifying and attracting professional profiles (Pétervári, Osman, Battacharya, 2016;Akinci & Sadler-Smith, 2012;Dörfler & Ackermann, 2012;Dollinger, Palaskonis, Pearson, 2004;Raidl & Lubart, 2001).In this context, there is a growing interest in Jung's studies (2013a,b) of psychological types and their application to people selection and development processes, with their emphasis on adopting the Myers Briggs Type Indicators -MBTI.Like other devices for measuring psychological types and, consequently, their propensity to creativity, the MBTI, which were developed by Myers & Myers (1997), seek to identify, among other factors, personal preferences vis-à-vis psychological functions.
The purpose of this article, therefore, is to present the results of research that investigated the extent to which Brazilian organizations employ professionals and managers whose psychological types are akin to intuition and feeling functions, which tend to favor the constitution of creative and innovative organizational environments.
The research analyzed the responses to the MBTI instrument (Myers & Myers, 1997) of 7,924 professionals and managers from different backgrounds and areas of activity, and from companies in different sectors of the economy, all of whom had attended the executive development programs of an important business school in Minas Gerais state between 2009 and 2016.
As for its relevance, the article is justified in that it adds to existing studies into trends that indicate the relevance of greater diversity in professional and managerial profiles given the transformations that the business environment is undergoing, and organizational configurations and arrangements that are more flexible, adaptable, and oriented towards creation and innovation.
In practical terms it aims to provide input for processes that try to impose greater organizational diversity, extrapolating management models that are centered on instrumental rationality and scientific objectivity, to the detriment of those based more on soft skills, which are commonly presented -at least in discourseas being essential for meeting the challenges of the current business context (Bourguignon, 2006;Brenton & Levin, 2012;Ionescu, Cornescu, Druica, 2012;Whiteet al ., 2014;Campbell, 2015).

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Jung's Psychological Types Jung (2013a) believed that there are distinct psychological characteristics in people's consciousness that explain why each observer has a particular and, at the same time, true view on a given phenomenon.He suggested that the basic systematization of the human psyche comprises an attitude towards the world (Extroverted orIntroverted ), which enables individuals to capture information by way of sentimental functions (Intuition or Sensation ), making it possible for them to adopt judgmental attitudes throughRational functions (Thinking or Feeling ).
In this sense, by understanding how information is apprehended and judged as psychological attitudes and functions, Jung (2013a) developed a typology that suggests that individuals should be classified based on these categories: Attitude and Function .He divided theAttitude category into two types -Introverted andExtroverted -according to the person's predominant attitude.In the case of the first type -Introverted -the individual tends to be devoted to himself/herself, while in the case of the second -Extroverted -the person is mainly oriented towards the external world.
As for the Function category, according to Jung's taxonomy (2013a), individuals can be subdivided into four subtypes, two classifieds as Rational and two as Sentimental .Rational subtypes comprise Thinking and Feeling .Sentimentalists are more oriented towards Sensation andIntuition .
Regarding Rational subtypes, the Thinking subtype organizes and decides according to the rules of analysis and logic, while the Feeling subtype organizes and decides based on values and personal merit.
As far as Sentimentalists are concerned, the Sensationfunction uses the five senses, the concreteness of the physical world and an experimental view of the existence of self and of the world.Intuition , in turn, is based on nonconscious perceptions and personal experiences, accessing images and symbols that are not common knowledge, but that the intuitive person uses as the basis of their actions (Hopcke, 2012).
Linking the possible combinations between Attitudes ,Functions and their variations, Jung (2013a) defines eight basic personality types: Extroverted Thinking ,Extroverted Feeling , Extroverted Intuitionand Extroverted Sensation ; and IntrovertedThinking , Introverted Feeling , IntrovertedIntuition, and Introverted Sensation .Each of these types has a particular set of characteristics that explain a person's preference for the way they deal with others, perceive reality, judge, and adopt certain positions vis-a-vis the world.

Measuring Jungian Psychological Types: The Myers Briggs Type Indicator
In the 1950s, Katharine C. Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers set out to work on Jung's typology with a view to systematizing it in such a way as to make it possible to measure psychological types.Not being a psychologist, Isabel Myers joined an important group of psychometrists from American universities in developing and improving what would become the Myers Briggs Type Indicator -MBTI, whose first version was applied in 1953, with the most recent version being released in 1998.In the meantime, the MBTI has been improved, expanded, and validated, and is currently one of the most widely adopted instruments internationally in career counseling, people selection and professional development processes (Bayne, 2011;Myers & Myers, 1997).
Organized on scales that are composed of dichotomous pairs, the MBTI provides sets of empirical definitions that are related to each aspect of Jung's theory of psychological types (2013a): Extroversion(E)/Introversion (I), Judging (J)/Perceiving (P),Intuition (N)/Sensation (S), and Thinking(T)/Feeling (F), as detailed in Figure 1.From the antithetical pairs shown in Figure 1, it is worth highlighting the role of the Intuition (N)/Sensation (S) dichotomy, in the degree to which the individual perceives reality in terms of data and facts, without considering any alternative meanings (Perceiving ).
Similarly, the Thinking (T)/Feeling (F) dichotomy seeks to describe the extent to which individuals use rational and systematic processes for apprehending reality, via analysis and logical inference (Thinking ) vis-à-vis those who emphasize images and emotions (Feeling ).
From the combination of these eight pairs of psychological attitudes and functions, MBTI considers the analysis of sixteen psychological types, instead of the eight originally proposed by Jung (2013a).These are organized according to the dichotomous criteria presented in Table 1.In the instrument, each type is represented by the initial letters in English of the dichotomies, such as ESFP, INTJ, ENTP, and so on.The combination of the two main attitudes and functions of the individual will, therefore, represent their psychological type, comprising their preferences and those behavioral characteristics with which they feel most "comfortable" in their relations with themself and with others (Garfield, Taylor, Dennis, Satzinger, 2001).Table 2 provides a summary of the main characteristics associated with each type.The statistical analyses undertaken by Briggs and Myers (2011) also result in a hierarchy between dominant, auxiliary, and tertiary functions, which are defined by two attitudinal and guiding components: E/I and J/P.Thus, if the individual is an ENTP type, ExtrovertedThinking (T) will be their dominant function, withIntroverted Intuition (N) as their auxiliary function.As in Jung's (2011) theory, the inferior function is the opposite of the dominant function, while the tertiary function is the opposite of the auxiliary function (Myers, 2016;Briggs & Myers, 2011).
When Bayne (2011) investigated the adoption of MBTI at the organizational level, over and above it being used in selection and professional development processes, he provided evidence of its increasing use in initiatives associated with communication, occupational health, counseling, coaching and leadership.Regarding careers, the author even suggests that there are statistically positive and significant relationships between certain pairs of psychological functions, satisfaction, and performance at work (Figure 3).

METHOD
In methodological terms, the study supporting the results presented in this article is characterized as field research that used a quantitative approach, is descriptive in character, and was conducted by way of secondary data analysis (Marconi & Lakatos, 2017).
Concerning the target audience, the research involved those who had graduated from executive development programs, including those who had been former students on 40 executive education courses at a business school headquartered in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, and who had completed an MBTI survey between 2009 and 2016.This resulted in a total of 7,924 cases being studied (Figure 4).As for the profile of those who were studied, the vast majority are men (59.4%), married (68.0%), aged between 39 and 54 years old (56.0%) -members of the so-called Generation X with an average age of 43.87 years -who had completed their higher education (99.31%) and were in management positions (53%).
Regarding the MBTI, the instrument: [. . .] consists of a battery of 93 questions, or items with dichotomous answers, that is, it admits only one possible answer to the two which the person being evaluated responds to.The items are divided into four bipolar preference scales and each question assesses a specific preference.Each answer counts as one point for one or other pole of that preference.Thus, we have: Perception functions (sensation or intuition): 26 questions.Each pole can receive a maximum of 26 points, if all the answers to the 26 questions refer to that pole.Judging functions (thinking or feeling): 24 questions.Each pole can receive a maximum of 24 points, if all the answers to the 24 questions refer to that pole.Orientation functions (judging or perceiving): 22 questions.Each pole can receive a maximum of 22 points, if all the answers to the 22 questions refer to that pole.Attitude functions (extroversion or introversion): 21 questions (Couto, Bartholomeu, Montiel, 2016, p. 12).
According to Couto, Bartholomeu, Montiel (2016), various international researchers have carried out studies aimed at verifying the internal consistency of the MBTI and have obtained satisfactory parameters (Cronbach's alpha around 0.70).In a study carried out by Couto, Bartholomeu, Montiel (2016), with the instrument applied in Portuguese, the data indicate Alpha values above 0.80, thus confirming high internal consistency.
Finally, about data treatment and analysis, the records were subjected to descriptive statistics and correlation analyses, using the SPSS 21.0.statistical data package.It is also worth highlighting the analyses that were carried out comparing the variables of interest to the study with those of a sociodemographic and professional nature that were investigated.To check for possible associations between the sixteen psychological types found in the MBTI and the demographic variables, aChi -square independence test was used.The Chi -square test of independence -also called a test of association -tests the hypothesis that the values obtained from the data and the expected values in the case of the independence of the groups is the same.The result of this test generates a value -a test statistic -and if this value is higher than a critical value then the variables can be considered to have an association profile with each other.When the results point to a bivariate association, the size of the effect needs to be ascertained.Cramer's V test was, therefore, applied to check the size of the association effect between the variables.This measure varies between 0 and 1, and the cutoff points for weak, moderate, and strong association are 0.1, 0.3 and 0.5, respectively.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
As a result of the analysis of the results of the application of the MBTI with the 7,924 graduates of the executive development programs who were studied, the dominant functions were Thinking (41.0%) andSensation (40.9%), followed by the Feeling function (10.1%), and, finally, the Intuition function, which was represented by just 8.0% of the professionals who were surveyed (Table 1).The findings also point to the absence of any statistically significant differences in the percentages obtained, when analyzed longitudinally over the period from 2010 to 2016 (Table 2).   3 and 4, the concentration of the ESTJ, ISTJ, ESTP and ISTP profiles, which account for 67.7% of the total sample, is corroborated.In absolute terms, these profiles alone account for 5,362 of the 7,924 cases investigated.The data also reiterate the high percentage of respondents with the ST psychological function, which is commonly related to leadership and management styles that are more task-oriented than people-oriented ("command-control").Similarly, the ST pair, followed by the J orientation (STJ), accounts for 4,067 registers, representing 51.3% of all the respondents, with the STJ combination being the hallmark of the group that was investigated.
In analysis by gender, the data point to a predominance of the ESTJ type in both men (31%) and women (26%), followed by the ISTJ type, which was registered by 25% of the male respondents and 18% of the females.The two types combined add up to more than 50% of the total number of cases (Table 5).As for the age group, there is a marginally significant association between this demographic variable and psychological types in the years 2010 and 2011.In 2013, the data indicate a significant association, while for the other years, the variables are independent (Table 6).Regarding the level of education, there is a significant association between types in the year 2015.In other years, the types are independent (Table 7).Finally, the data in Table 11 show the frequency distribution and findings of the independence verification between the types associated with the Orientation pair (J/P) and the demographic variables that were investigated.From this dataset there is little diversity in terms of psychological preferences, pointing to a vicious circle of discourse and practice being repeated, thus corroborating the conservative character of Brazilian modernization (Faoro, 1992;Leite, 1994).It also suggests an imbalance between demands for more individual relationship, communication, and social skills vis-à-vis the evolution of management policies and practices that can support them, thus confirming the findings of the research carried out in Brazil by Sant'Anna, Santos, Diniz, Benevides, Dultra (2016), Benevides, Santos, Dultra (2009), Sant'Anna, Moraes, Kilimnik (2005), and Kilimnik and Rodrigues (2002).They found that despite discourse that advocates the relevance of the so-called soft skills, there are no organizational environments capable of surmounting the authoritarian, hierarchical and centralized nature of the Brazilian organizational context.
The data obtained also corroborate findings regarding the "objectivization" trends in human relationships, by which the attraction, development, recognition, and retention of professionals is based on "managerialist" premises, if not on the mere automation of processes and activities.This is in line with those studies that suggest that relationships between business and management models are characterized by the impoverishment of work, its precariousness, and by the intensification of new pathologies and illnesses, including the alarming growth in cases of depression, anxiety and suicide, which is associated with "leadership styles " -in this case more correctly indicated as "domination" and "control" styles (Foucault, 2002) -that are "mortally" task and results oriented (Antunes, 2018).It is worth adding that Thinking and Sensation individuals (56.42%) are in the majority among Generation X respondents, suggesting selection processes that tend to prioritize attracting and promoting subjects with this type of psychological preference.
The data, therefore, are in line with a study conducted by Bayne (2011) with North American executives and managers, which reveals that, even though to a lesser extent than with their counterparts in Brazil, there is a predominance (67.7%) of psychological types associated with the Thinking and Sensation functions; in other words, a predominance of types linked to task-oriented ("command and control") "leadership and management styles", with a focus on "practice and technical skills forfacts and objects " (Bayne, 2011, p. 55).

CONCLUSION
Based on Jung's psychological types it would certainly be a fallacy to conclude that creativity is an exclusive trait of intuitive profiles, or that it is absent in organizations because their prevalent "leadership styles" are oriented towards "command-control style" psychological preferences.In any case, it seems symptomatic to consider that the prevalence of such profiles -that are "fact " and "object " oriented (Bayne, 2011) -derives from management philosophies and models that focus more on tasks than on people (Hersey & Blanchard, 1969).
In markets and segments in which disruptive technologies have the potential to alter competitive rules, the monotonous concentration on certain professional profiles can, however, prevent organizations from identifying the moment and the way to reposition themselves.After all, diversity, creativity, innovation, and engagement tend to be factors that are related to the strategic choices of organizations in the "upper circuit of the economy" (Santos, 2008), as they transition to the digital age economy.
In "The Innovator's Dilemma", Christensen (2012, p. 24) states that one of the reasons why certain organizations are unsuccessful is because of their focus on managerial control.This is particularly so when they insist on incremental technologies "[. . .] that have in common the effect of improving the performance of established products".Lévi-Strauss (1993, p. 336) warned that "[. . .] humanity is constantly dealing with two contradictory processes, of which one tends to establish unification, while the other aims to maintain or restore diversification".According to this author, the importance of diversity is vital, as there is no innovation without diversity.The issue, however, is not limited to including intuitive profiles and attempting to domesticate them, but in the ability of organizations to deal with difference, and to go beyond "objectifying" prescriptions and "normopathic" protocols (Han, 2019(Han, , 2018;;Foucault, 2002).
In addition to managing psychological preferences by attracting and retaining individual competencies that are either inherited or developed, we learn from our findings that contextual changes are essential components for a more systemic understanding of emerging organizational dynamics; and this is much more than just appropriating theories and instruments, without their due articulation with the (re-)signification required at the level of mental models and management philosophy.
In short, the findings suggest that personal stories cannot take into account just the psychological reality or the mere selection of psychological types and specific attributes of competency.It must also be thought of in terms of the "environmental resources", "organizational support" and "potential spaces" that meet the dependence needs of human elements in their interaction with new organizational configurations and architectures, which presupposes the relational spaces and leadership dynamics that foster and develop them.
Returning to the central question proposed for this paper, it may seem far from practical to indicate that contextual factors, including spreading discourse about new business models, organizational architecture, and management models, be accompanied on the same level by a diversity of professional profiles.On the contrary, "innovations" in practice seem to reverberate to the application of "more of the same", either by intensifying automation, monitoring and control devices; by emphasizing the "desubjectification" of workers; or because of the risks of adopting "monotone" organizational configurations that are often associated with impoverished and precarious forms of work (Han, 2019(Han, , 2018;;Antunes, 2018).This increases the impossibility of achieving organizational environments that effectively favor healthier, more diverse, and more creative intraorganizational and interorganizational dynamics.This is a vicious cycle that it only seems possible to break by adopting an ethical posture that considers a greater balance between context, task, and people orientations.
FIGURE 1 MBTI: Dichotomous pairs FIGURE 2Characteristics associated with each psychological type

FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3Relationship between psychological functions, satisfaction, and performance at work

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FIGURE 4

TABLE 1
Distribution of the psychological types by dominant functions.
Research dataTable8summarizes the frequency distributions, and the results of the independence check for the relationship between demographic variables and the types associated with the Object pair (E/I).Table9gives the frequency distribution and verification of independence between the demographic variables and types associated with the Perceiving pair (N/S).Likewise, the data in Table10include the frequency distribution and results of the independence verification between the Judging pair (N/S) types and the demographic variables that were investigated.
Garfield et al .(2001)e study of personality indicators, such as Myers-Briggs and Keirsey-Bates, links personality types and leadership styles, and there are certain personality types and characteristics that make leaders effective".Having conducted her studies in American military structures, the author states that "[...] individuals with certain specific personality traits and types have greater potential of becoming high-ranking military leaders, [. ..] the unique mixture of a leader's personality traits creates their leadership style and determines the quality of their leadership skills".The author specifically identifies the four types she calls "[...] those most likely to become effective leaders" in the American armed forces: ISTJ, ESTJ, ENTJ and INTJ.According to the research, these four types make up approximately 78% of the rising class of officers within the American armed forces, although such psychological types only account for 30% of the American population.Conversely,Garfield et al .(2001)claimthatIntuition /Feeling (NF) individuals generate more paradigmshifting ideas than Sensation /Thinking (ST) individuals.When investigating the notion of intuitive management, Lussier (2016), also found that individuals with anIntuitive-type profile are more likely to be creative, especially when this is accompanied by the Feeling function, which goes to make up the psychological pair Intuition /Feeling (NF), which is found in ENFJ, INFJ, ENFP and INFP psychological types.