Personality profiling encompasses numerous models that arise from personality trait theory. In the context of this article, four models deserve special attention due to their importance in personality research and/or their appropriateness for the topic:

• Socionics (founded in the 1970s by Aušra Augustinavichiute, e.g., Augustinavichiute, 1994, 1998);
• cybernetic mindscape theory (Maruyama, 1980; Boje, 2004);
• the five factor model (FFM), commonly called the ‘big five’ personality trait model (Costa and McCrae, 1992);
• the personality type theory of the Myers-Briggs type inventory (MBTI, see McKenna et al., 2002).
  These models are independent and unrelated, though Boje (2004) made an attempt to connect MBTI and mindscape theory.

Socionics by Augustinavichiute (1994, 1998) parallels MBTI because of its Jungian base of the theory, but also includes Freudian ideas of the conscious and subconscious mind. Different combinations of psychological functions result in different ways of accepting and producing information, which in turn lead to distinct behavioural patterns and different character types.

Mindscape is traditionally a term that refers to a mental or psychological scene or area of the imagination. Maruyama (1980) who was interested in epistemological structures connected these structures with the way that people process and interpret information and his explorations resulted in a theory of ‘epistemological types’.

Both Socionics and mindscape play no role in the management literature. Yet, they are of importance for a theoretical understanding of the relevance of personality theories in general. Both concepts are primarily concerned with the ways persons accept, process, interpret and produce information which, in turn, is supposed to lead to distinct patterns of behaviour. These different patterns then can be attributed to different character types.

• Gerhard Fink, Research Institute for European Affairs, Vienna University of Economics and Business;
• Wolfgang Mayrhofer, Interdisciplinary Group of Management and Organisational Behaviour, Vienna University of Economics and Business