Exploring the relation between personality traits and agile team climate: Aggregating results from a twice replicated study in a telecom company

•To study the effect of five-factor personality traits over team climate dimensions.•To aggregate findings of twice-replicated survey in a telecom company.•To employ techniques like correlation, regression and meta-analysis over survey data.•Spotted significant medium negative effect between neuroticism & participative safety.•Personality traits accounted to around 10 % of variance in team climate dimensions. Former literature revealed team performance is contingent on personality composition and interactive effects of team climate. While decades of research on personality prevails in software engineering, team climate remains sparsely researched. In agile software development, individuals and interactions are key sources of agility. This study replicates a previous study and analyzes the relationship between five-factor-model personality traits and team climate dimensions among agile teams in a telecom company. A Web-based survey was replicated twice, first with 75 professionals from 12 teams in Sweden, followed by 46 professionals from seven teams in India. The data was used for correlation, regression analyses, and meta-analysis. We observed significant negative correlations between neuroticism and all the team climate dimensions. Meta-analysis identified a significant medium-sized negative effect between neuroticism and participative safety. Regression analysis showed personality traits accounted for around 10 % of the variance in team climate dimensions. High neuroticism is not conducive to team climate as emotionally unstable members could impair team cohesion by being reactive and susceptible to stress. Managers assembling Scrum teams ought to mitigate higher neuroticism by counterbalancing it with an elevation of corresponding negatively correlated personality variables and providing support/training towards increasing the aforementioned variables.