Business-focused Inventory of Personality (BIP)

DESCRIPTION: The Business-focused Inventory of Personality (BIP) is a personality assessment designed for workplace contexts. It evaluates temperament and motivational traits, proving useful in scenarios such as:

• Selection
• Development
• Coaching
• Career counseling

Applicable to adults aged 20 and above, the BIP focuses on assessing normal personality traits relevant to the workplace.

Development: Developed initially in Germany under the name “Bochumer Inventar zur berufsbezogenen Persönlichkeitsbeschreibung,” the BIP was created to evaluate work-related personality traits. The item pool creation and test development were spearheaded by Hossiep and Paschen. The process involved:

• Identifying personality constructs through a combination of pilot research, reviewing existing work psychology literature, and surveying human resources professionals.
• Creating German-language items that were easily understood, presented a medium level of difficulty, and balanced positively and negatively keyed items.

This process resulted in a pool of 315 items, which was subsequently refined to a final set of 14 primary scales encompassing 264 items.

Technical details:

• Administration: The BIP is administered either in group settings or individually, and can be taken online or using the traditional paper-and-pencil format.
• Forms: The BIP is available in two formats: self-report and observer-report.
• Self-Report Format:
  • Consists of 220 items
  • Utilizes a 6-point response scale, anchored by “completely true” and “completely untrue” at the extremes
  • Typical completion time is 40 minutes or less
• Observer-Report Format:
  • Condensed version of the self-report
  • Includes 42 items, with three items per scale
  • Employs a 9-point scale for assessment
  • Marketed as a supplementary tool, not intended as a standalone psychometric test
  • Lacks established norms or validation
• Scoring:
  • Provides scores for each of the 14 primary scales and the Impression Management scale.
  • Does not score supplementary indices; the technical manual advises against their use in decision-making or research analysis.
• Domains and Scales: The 14 primary scales are organized into four domains:
  • Occupational Orientation: Achievement Motivation, Power Motivation, Leadership Motivation.
  • Occupational Behaviors: Conscientiousness, Flexibility, Action Orientation.
  • Social Competencies: Social Sensitivity, Openness to Contact, Sociability, Team Orientation, Assertiveness.
  • Psychological Constitution: Emotional Stability, Working under Pressure, Self-Confidence.
• Supplementary Scales: Sense of Control, Competitiveness, Mobility, Time Orientation.

Internal consistency reliability: The technical report presents alpha coefficients for the seven factors of the Emergenetics Profile (EP), ranging from .71 to .83, based on a sample size of 89,101. However, the report does not mention the number of items included in each scale. Although not directly related to the BIP, this information is presented in the context of comparing and contrasting various personality assessment tools.

Validity:

• The BIP demonstrates criterion-related validity through correlations between its scales and various self-reported occupational variables. These variables include factors like salary, hierarchical level within the organization, career success, and job satisfaction. Notably, the BIP manual does not clarify the methodologies behind these correlations, despite the sample sizes exceeding those of the U.K. standardization sample (550-600) and reaching into the thousands.
• The manual provides correlations between self-ratings and observer ratings (from colleagues and friends). These correlations generally align with anticipated values. However, the manual does not present data correlating observer ratings with self-ratings of outcomes.

COMMENTARY: The BIP, while presented as a leadership assessment tool, lacks any substantial evidence to support this claim. Its marketing leans heavily on its development outside the U.S. and its association with the five-factor model for validity generalization. Notably, the BIP manual lacks analyses related to score variations across demographic factors such as race, ethnicity, age, and gender. Further, the criteria chosen for validation seem arbitrarily selected rather than being grounded in a robust attempt to demonstrate the inventory’s practical value. The lack of empirical support, particularly concerning leadership outcomes, raises concerns about the BIP’s positioning as a leadership assessment tool.

SUMMARY: The BIP is essentially a five-factor personality model assessment, augmented with additional scales intended to evaluate personality aspects pertinent to organizational performance. However, the current state of research supporting the BIP falls short of the standards expected for a high-quality instrument. The BIP may be sufficient in situations where consultants are accustomed to the information it provides and prefer its continued use. However, for those exploring options for personality assessment, particularly in leadership contexts, considering better-supported assessments or even tailor-made instruments is advisable until more robust validation research is conducted on the BIP.

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