{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,25]],"date-time":"2026-02-25T17:15:33Z","timestamp":1772039733118,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":58,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"5","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,4,27]],"date-time":"2022-04-27T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1651017600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Future Internet"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Do employees with high ethical and moral values perform better? Comparing personality characteristics, moral values, and risk-taking behavior with individual and team performance has long been researched. Until now, these determinants of individual personality have been measured through surveys. However, individuals are notoriously bad at self-assessment. Combining machine learning (ML) with social network analysis (SNA) and natural language processing (NLP), this research draws on email conversations to predict the personal values of individuals. These values are then compared with the individual and team performance of employees. This prediction builds on a two-layered ML model. Building on features of social network structure, network dynamics, and network content derived from email conversations, we predict personality characteristics, moral values, and the risk-taking behavior of employees. In turn, we use these values to predict individual and team performance. Our results indicate that more conscientious and less extroverted team members increase the performance of their teams. Willingness to take social risks decreases the performance of innovation teams in a healthcare environment. Similarly, a focus on values such as power and self-enhancement increases the team performance of a global services provider. In sum, the contributions of this paper are twofold: it first introduces a novel approach to measuring personal values based on \u201chonest signals\u201d in emails. Second, these values are then used to build better teams by identifying ideal personality characteristics for a chosen task.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/fi14050133","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,4,27]],"date-time":"2022-04-27T13:40:57Z","timestamp":1651066857000},"page":"133","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":4,"title":["Measuring Ethical Values with AI for Better Teamwork"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"14","author":[{"given":"Erkin","family":"Altuntas","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Cologne Institute for Information Systems, University of Cologne Pohligstrasse 1, 50969 Cologne, Germany"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7271-3224","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Peter A.","family":"Gloor","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, 245 First Street, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Pascal","family":"Budner","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Cologne Institute for Information Systems, University of Cologne Pohligstrasse 1, 50969 Cologne, Germany"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,4,27]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"222","DOI":"10.1016\/j.paid.2010.07.007","article-title":"Personality Aspects of Entrepreneurship: A Look at Five Meta-Analyses","volume":"51","year":"2011","journal-title":"Personal. Individ. Differ."},{"key":"ref_2","first-page":"228","article-title":"Impact of Ethical Leadership on Employee Job Performance","volume":"3","author":"Bello","year":"2012","journal-title":"Int. J. Bus. Soc. Sci."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Pentland, A.S. (2008). Honest Signals: How They Shape Our World, MIT Press.","DOI":"10.7551\/mitpress\/8022.001.0001"},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gloor, P.A. (2017). Sociometrics and Human Relationships: Analyzing Social Networks to Manage Brands, Predict Trends, and Improve Organizational Performance, Emerald Publishing Limited. [1st ed.].","DOI":"10.1108\/9781787141124"},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"100","DOI":"10.1016\/j.socnet.2021.11.010","article-title":"\u201cEntanglement\u201d\u2014A New Dynamic Metric to Measure Team Flow","volume":"70","author":"Gloor","year":"2022","journal-title":"Soc. Netw."},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"254","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jbusres.2020.04.025","article-title":"The Digital Footprint of Innovators: Using Email to Detect the Most Creative People in Your Organization","volume":"114","author":"Gloor","year":"2020","journal-title":"J. Bus. Res."},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Sun, J., and Gloor, P. (2021). E-Mail Network Patterns and Body Language Predict Risk-Taking Attitude. Future Internet, 13.","DOI":"10.3390\/fi13010017"},{"key":"ref_8","unstructured":"Przegalinska, A., Grippa, F., and Gloor, P.A. (2020). Heart Beats Brain: Measuring Moral Beliefs Through E-Mail Analysis. Digital Transformation of Collaboration. Proceedings of the 9th International COINs Conference, Springer Proceedings in Complexity."},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"166","DOI":"10.1016\/j.sbspro.2011.10.573","article-title":"Towards \u201cHonest Signals\u201d of Creativity\u2014Identifying Personality Characteristics Through Microscopic Social Network Analysis","volume":"26","author":"Gloor","year":"2011","journal-title":"Procedia-Soc. Behav. Sci."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"587","DOI":"10.1016\/S0191-8869(03)00118-1","article-title":"A Contemplated Revision of the Neo Five-Factor Inventory","volume":"36","author":"McCrae","year":"2004","journal-title":"Personal. Individ. Differ."},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"19","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1540-4560.1994.tb01196.x","article-title":"Are There Universal Aspects in the Structure and Contents of Human Values?","volume":"50","author":"Schwartz","year":"1994","journal-title":"J. Soc. Issues"},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"366","DOI":"10.1037\/a0021847","article-title":"Mapping the Moral Domain","volume":"101","author":"Graham","year":"2011","journal-title":"J. Personal. Soc. Psychol."},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"263","DOI":"10.1002\/bdm.414","article-title":"A Domain-Specific Risk-Attitude Scale: Measuring Risk Perceptions and Risk Behaviors","volume":"15","author":"Weber","year":"2002","journal-title":"J. Behav. Decis. Mak."},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"725","DOI":"10.1121\/1.1906679","article-title":"Communication Patterns in Task-Oriented Groups","volume":"22","author":"Bavelas","year":"1950","journal-title":"J. Acoust. Soc. Am."},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Grippa, F., Leit\u00e3o, J., Gluesing, J., Riopelle, K., and Gloor, P.A. (2018). Analyzing VC Influence on Startup Success: They Might Not Be Good for You. Collaborative Innovation Networks, Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-319-74295-3"},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"101924","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ijinfomgt.2019.03.011","article-title":"Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is: Using Deep Learning to Identify Consumer Tribes from Word Usage","volume":"51","author":"Gloor","year":"2020","journal-title":"Int. J. Inf. Manag."},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gloor, P.A. (2022). Happimetrics: Leveraging AI to Untangle the Surprising Link Between Ethics, Happiness, and Business Success, Edward Elgar.","DOI":"10.4337\/9781803924021"},{"key":"ref_18","unstructured":"Schanafelt, D. (2016). Introduction to Machine Learning with Python, O\u2019Reilly Media. [1st ed.]."},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"321","DOI":"10.1613\/jair.953","article-title":"SMOTE: Synthetic Minority Over-Sampling Technique","volume":"16","author":"Chawla","year":"2002","journal-title":"J. Artif. Intell. Res."},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Chen, T., and Guestrin, C. (2016, January 13\u201317). XGBoost: A Scalable Tree Boosting System. Proceedings of the ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, San Francisco, CA, USA.","DOI":"10.1145\/2939672.2939785"},{"key":"ref_21","unstructured":"(2022, January 15). Intelligent Collaborative Knowledge Networks. Available online: http:\/\/www.ickn.org\/ckntools.html."},{"key":"ref_22","unstructured":"(2022, January 15). Galaxylens: Galaxy Sciences. Available online: http:\/\/www.galaxysciences.com\/galaxylens.php."},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"272","DOI":"10.1080\/07350015.2019.1624293","article-title":"Causal Interpretations of Black-Box Models","volume":"39","author":"Zhao","year":"2021","journal-title":"J. Bus. Econ. Stat."},{"key":"ref_24","unstructured":"Shah, J.Y., and Gardner, W.L. (2008). Prosocial Motivation. Handbook of Motivation Science, Guilford Press."},{"key":"ref_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1102","DOI":"10.5465\/amj.2012.1142","article-title":"Making a Difference in the Teamwork: Linking Team Prosocial Motivation to Team Processes and Effectiveness","volume":"58","author":"Hu","year":"2015","journal-title":"Acad. Manag. J."},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"393","DOI":"10.5465\/amr.2007.24351328","article-title":"Relational Job Design and the Motivation to Make a Prosocial Difference","volume":"32","author":"Grant","year":"2007","journal-title":"Acad. Manag. Rev."},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"715","DOI":"10.1037\/0021-9010.78.5.715","article-title":"Conscientiousness and Performance of Sales Representatives: Test of the Mediating Effects of Goal Setting","volume":"78","author":"Barrick","year":"1993","journal-title":"J. Appl. Psychol."},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"111","DOI":"10.1037\/0021-9010.78.1.111","article-title":"Autonomy as a Moderator of the Relationships Between the Big Five Personality Dimensions and Job Performance","volume":"78","author":"Barrick","year":"1993","journal-title":"J. Appl. Psychol."},{"key":"ref_29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"68","DOI":"10.4102\/sajip.v29i1.88","article-title":"The Big Five Personality Dimensions and Job Performance","volume":"29","author":"Rothman","year":"2003","journal-title":"SA J. Ind. Psychol."},{"key":"ref_30","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1744-6570.1991.tb00688.x","article-title":"The Big Five Personality Dimensions and Job Performance: A Meta-Analysis","volume":"44","author":"Barrick","year":"1991","journal-title":"Pers. Psychol."},{"key":"ref_31","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"515","DOI":"10.1023\/A:1022940519157","article-title":"Openness and Job Performance in U.S.-Based Japanese Manufacturing Companies","volume":"14","author":"Bing","year":"2000","journal-title":"J. Bus. Psychol."},{"key":"ref_32","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1207\/s15327043hup1001_1","article-title":"Seven Social Performance Scales for the California Psychological Inventory","volume":"10","author":"Johnson","year":"1997","journal-title":"Hum. Perform."},{"key":"ref_33","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"586","DOI":"10.1037\/0021-9010.83.4.586","article-title":"A Meta-Analytic Review of Predictors of Job Performance for Salespeople","volume":"83","author":"Vinchur","year":"1998","journal-title":"J. Appl. Psychol."},{"key":"ref_34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1042","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1751-9004.2010.00307.x","article-title":"The Psychology of Nice People","volume":"4","author":"Knack","year":"2010","journal-title":"Soc. Personal. Psychol. Compass"},{"key":"ref_35","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"390","DOI":"10.1037\/a0026021","article-title":"Do Nice Guys\u2014and Gals\u2014Really Finish Last? The Joint Effects of Sex and Agreeableness on Income","volume":"102","author":"Judge","year":"2011","journal-title":"J. Personal. Soc. Psychol."},{"key":"ref_36","first-page":"16","article-title":"Investigating the Predictive Abilities of Schwartz\u2019s Ten Universal Values on Five Work Performance Outcome Behaviors","volume":"3","author":"Agras","year":"2015","journal-title":"Soc. Basic Sci. Res. Rev."},{"key":"ref_37","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"680","DOI":"10.1177\/1046496413507609","article-title":"Team Players and Collective Performance: How Agreeableness Affects Team Performance Over Time","volume":"44","author":"Bradley","year":"2013","journal-title":"Small Group Res."},{"key":"ref_38","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"621","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1744-6570.1999.tb00174.x","article-title":"The Big Five Personality Traits, General Mental Ability, and Career Success Across the Life Span","volume":"52","author":"Judge","year":"1999","journal-title":"Pers. Psychol."},{"key":"ref_39","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"30","DOI":"10.1037\/0021-9010.82.1.30","article-title":"The Five Factor Model of Personality and Job Performance in the European Community","volume":"82","author":"Salgado","year":"1997","journal-title":"J. Appl. Psychol."},{"key":"ref_40","unstructured":"Heffernan, M. (2022, January 01). Don\u2019t Wish for Obedient Employees. Available online: https:\/\/www.inc.com\/margaret-heffernan\/why-you-dont-want-obedient-employees.html."},{"key":"ref_41","unstructured":"Heffernan, M. (2011). Just Following Orders. Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril, Doubleday Canada."},{"key":"ref_42","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"314","DOI":"10.1108\/09604529710186660","article-title":"The Leader and the Team","volume":"7","author":"Morris","year":"1997","journal-title":"Manag. Serv. Qual. Int. J."},{"key":"ref_43","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"663","DOI":"10.1016\/S0191-8869(03)00124-7","article-title":"Surfing: An Avenue for Socially Acceptable Risk-Taking, Satisfying Needs for Sensation Seeking and Experience Seeking","volume":"36","author":"Diehm","year":"2004","journal-title":"Personal. Individ. Differ."},{"key":"ref_44","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"180","DOI":"10.1002\/bdm.677","article-title":"Predicting Domain-Specific Risk Taking With the HEXACO Personality Structure","volume":"24","author":"Weller","year":"2011","journal-title":"J. Behav. Decis. Mak."},{"key":"ref_45","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"150","DOI":"10.1177\/1088868306294907","article-title":"Empirical, Theoretical, and Practical Advantages of the HEXACO Model of Personality Structure","volume":"11","author":"Ashton","year":"2007","journal-title":"Personal. Soc. Psychol. Rev."},{"key":"ref_46","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Fisk, S.R., and Overton, J. (2020). Bold or Reckless? The Impact of Workplace Risk-Taking on Attributions and Expected Outcomes. PLoS ONE, 15.","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0228672"},{"key":"ref_47","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"436","DOI":"10.1080\/01930826.2017.1300455","article-title":"Leadership Reflections: Extrovert and Introvert Leaders","volume":"57","author":"Farrell","year":"2017","journal-title":"J. Libr. Adm."},{"key":"ref_48","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"40","DOI":"10.1002\/jls.21438","article-title":"If You Want Creativity in Your Organizations, Seek Out the Introvert","volume":"10","author":"Dannar","year":"2016","journal-title":"J. Leadersh. Stud."},{"key":"ref_49","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"792","DOI":"10.1037\/a0027352","article-title":"Direct and Contextual Effects of Individual Values on Organizational Citizenship Behavior in Teams","volume":"97","author":"Rode","year":"2012","journal-title":"J. Appl. Psychol."},{"key":"ref_50","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"123","DOI":"10.1287\/orsc.11.2.123.12506","article-title":"The Social Capital of French and American Managers","volume":"11","author":"Burt","year":"2000","journal-title":"Organ. Sci."},{"key":"ref_51","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"17680","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.1920484117","article-title":"Predicting Personality from Patterns of Behavior Collected with Smartphones","volume":"117","author":"Stachl","year":"2020","journal-title":"Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA"},{"key":"ref_52","unstructured":"Marr, B. (2018). Data-Driven HR: How to Use Analytics and Metrics to Drive Performance, Kogan Page."},{"key":"ref_53","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"190","DOI":"10.1177\/1088868318772990","article-title":"Using Machine Learning to Advance Personality Assessment and Theory","volume":"23","author":"Bleidorn","year":"2019","journal-title":"Personal. Soc. Psychol. Rev."},{"key":"ref_54","unstructured":"Blum, A., and Stangl, K. (2019). Recovering from Biased Data: Can Fairness Constraints Improve Accuracy?. arXiv."},{"key":"ref_55","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Suresh, H., and Guttag, J. (2021). A Framework for Understanding Sources of Harm throughout the Machine Learning Life Cycle. Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms, and Optimization, Association for Computing Machinery.","DOI":"10.1145\/3465416.3483305"},{"key":"ref_56","first-page":"53","article-title":"The Objective Assessment of Personality: Cattells\u2019s T-Data Revisited and More","volume":"48","author":"Santacreu","year":"2006","journal-title":"Psychol. Sci."},{"key":"ref_57","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bird, C., Gourley, A., Devanbu, P., Gertz, M., and Swaminathan, A. (2006, January 22\u201323). Mining Email Social Networks. Proceedings of the 2006 International Workshop on Mining Software Repositories, Shanghai, China.","DOI":"10.1145\/1137983.1138016"},{"key":"ref_58","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"249","DOI":"10.1007\/BF03395706","article-title":"The Valued Living Questionnaire: Defining and Measuring Valued Action within a Behavioral Framework","volume":"60","author":"Wilson","year":"2010","journal-title":"Psychol. Rec."}],"container-title":["Future Internet"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1999-5903\/14\/5\/133\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,10]],"date-time":"2025-10-10T23:01:57Z","timestamp":1760137317000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1999-5903\/14\/5\/133"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2022,4,27]]},"references-count":58,"journal-issue":{"issue":"5","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,5]]}},"alternative-id":["fi14050133"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/fi14050133","relation":{},"ISSN":["1999-5903"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1999-5903","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2022,4,27]]}}}