In popular culture psychopaths are inaccurately portrayed as serial killers or homicidal maniacs. Most real-world psychopaths are neither killers nor maniacs. Psychologists currently understand psychopathy as an affective disorder that leads to repeated criminal and antisocial behavior. Counter to this prevailing view, I claim that psychopathy is not necessarily linked with criminal behavior. Successful psychopaths, an intriguing new category of psychopathic agent, support this conception of psychopathy. I then consider reactive attitude theories of moral responsibility. Within this tradition, psychopaths are (...) thought to be blameless as a result of their pronounced affective deficits. Psychopaths are considered morally blind because they lack the moral emotions that make us sensitive to moral reasons. I argue that, even if they are morally blind, psychopaths remain open to forms of blame stemming from non-moral reactive attitudes. These reactive attitudes remain appropriate because psychopaths can express hateful, disgusting, or contemptible non-moral values in their judgments. (shrink)

Careerism refers to an individual’s propensity to achieve their personal and career goals through nonperformance-based activities. We investigated the role of several dispositional predictors of careerism, including Five-factor model personality traits, primary psychopathy, and exchange ideology. Based on data from 131 respondents, as expected, we observed that emotional stability was negatively correlated with careerism. Primary psychopathy and exchange ideology explained additional variance in careerism after accounting for FFM traits. Relative importance analyses indicated that psychopathy and exchange ideology were equally important (...) in predicting careerism. We highlight the need for future research efforts investigating the combined effects of contextual factors—particularly, human resource practices—and individual differences to understand careerism in the workplace. (shrink)

Moving sustainability towards flourishing for all implies a care for all and for the future. However, in this commentary I note that many corporate and political leaders do not care for others or the future because, embodying egotistical, ruthless, remorseless, and dishonest (psychopathic) characteristics, their concern is only for themselves. This commentary argues that toxic leadership and governance, in the form of corporate psychopathy and corporate psychopaths, are important barriers to achieving sustainability. Notably, and of relevance to this argument, the (...) embodiment of psychopathic traits can give people the ability to brazenly push themselves to the top, unimpeded by emotional distractions and thereby attain leadership. However, due to their deep indifference to corporate social responsibility and a readiness to falsify environmental impact reports, engage in faking corporate social responsibility and illegally dump toxic waste materials; the influence of such psychopathic leadership may be detrimental to sustainability and to flourishing for all. Leaders high in psychopathy will ignore or dismiss scientific evidence of unsustainable practices because they do not care about the future or about dismissing scientific evidence of detriments to the prospects for humanity. Accordingly toxic leadership and governance are arguably the critical factors in achieving a flourishing sustainability. The future of all life thus depends on who we choose as our leaders. (shrink)

Corruption is a word used loosely to describe many kinds of action that people find distasteful. We prefer to reserve it for the intentional misuse of the good offices of an established social entity for private benefit, posing as fair trading. The currency of corruption is not always material or financial. Moral corruption is all too familiar within churches and other ostensibly beneficent institutions, and it happens within medicine and the pharmaceutical industries. Corrupt behavior reduces trust, costs money, causes injustice, (...) and arouses anger. Yet it persists, despite all efforts since the beginnings of societies. People who act corruptly may lack conscience and empathy in the same way as those with some personality disorders. Finding ways to prevent corruption from contaminating beneficent organizations is therefore likely to be frustratingly difficult. Transparency and accountability may go some way, but the determined corruptor is unlikely to feel constrained by moral and reporting requirements of this kind. Punishment and redress are complicated issues, unlikely to satisfy victims and society at large. Both perhaps should deal in the same currency—material or social—in which the corrupt dealing took place. (shrink)

Moral disengagement was initially conceptualized as a process through which people reconstrue unethical behaviors, with the effect of deactivating self-sanctions and thereby clearing the way for ethical transgressions. Our article challenges how researchers now conceptualize moral disengagement. The current literature is overly liberal, in that it mixes two related but distinct constructs—process moral disengagement and the propensity to morally disengage—creating ambiguity in the findings. It is overly conservative, as it adopts a challengeable classification scheme of “four points in moral self-regulation” (...) and perpetuates defining moral disengagement via a set of eight psychological mechanisms, narrowing our understanding of the phenomenon. To address these problems, we propose to define process moral disengagement intensionally (specifying the necessary and sufficient conditions for correct application of the term) as intrapsychic cognitive reasoning processes through which people selectively reconstrue a moral judgment “behavior B by actor A is morally wrong” and shift it toward becoming “behavior B is not morally wrong” or “actor A is not responsible for behavior B.” This definition achieves disambiguation and increased concept clarity. We leverage the definition to motivate a classification scheme for psychological mechanisms of moral disengagement along two dimensions—reconstruing morality and reconstruing agency—and to initiate an open inventory of psychological mechanisms that specify how process moral disengagement operates. (shrink)

Originally conceptualized by Bandura as the process of cognitive restructuring that allows individuals to disassociate with their internal moral standards and behave unethically without feeling distress, moral disengagement has attracted the attention of management researchers in recent years. An increasing body of research has examined the factors which lead people to morally disengage and its related outcomes in the workplace. However, the conceptualization of moral disengagement, how it should be measured, the manner in which it develops, and its influence on (...) work outcomes are areas of continued debate among researchers. In this article, we undertake a systematic review of research on moral disengagement in the workplace and develop a comprehensive research agenda that highlights opportunities for theoretical and empirical advancement of the literature. (shrink)

While psychopathy research has been growing for decades, a relatively new area of research is corporate psychopathy. Corporate psychopaths are simply psychopaths working in organizational settings. They may be attracted to the financial, power, and status gains available in senior positions and can cause considerable damage within these roles from a manipulative interpersonal style to large-scale fraud. Based upon prior studies, we analyze psychopathy research pertaining to 23 moral emotions classified according to functional quality and target. Based upon our review, (...) we suggest that psychopaths are high in moral emotions associated with other-directed negative signals, low in self-directed negative signals, and low in other-directed positive signals. We found no empirical articles related to self-directed positive signals. This understanding of the specific moral emotion deficits of corporate psychopaths provides greater theoretical understanding and practical implications of knowing which individuals not to promote, though more research is needed on moral emotions that are faked for manipulative reasons. (shrink)

This longitudinal case study reports on a charity in the UK which gained a new CEO who was reported by two middle managers who worked in the charity, to embody all or most of the ten characteristics within a measure of corporate psychopathy. The leadership of this CEO with a high corporate psychopathy score was reported to be so poor that the organisation was described as being one without leadership and as a lost organisation with no direction. This paper outlines (...) the resultant characteristics of the ensuing aimlessness and lack of drive of the organisation involved. Comparisons are made to a previous CEO in the same organisation, who was reportedly an authentic, effective and transformational leader. Outcomes under the CEO with a high corporate psychopathy score were related to bullying, staff withdrawal and turnover as effective employees stayed away from and/or left the organisation. Outcomes also included a marked organisational decline in terms of revenue, employee commitment, creativity and organisational innovativeness. The paper makes a contribution to both leadership and to corporate psychopathy research as it appears to be the first reported study of a CEO with a high corporate psychopathy score. (shrink)

Primary psychopathy in leaders, also referred to as successful psychopathy or corporate psychopathy, has been put forward as a key determinant of corporate misconduct. In contrast to the general notion that primary psychopaths’ destructiveness cannot be controlled, we posit that psychopathic leaders’ display of self-serving and abusive behavior can be restrained by organizational contextual factors. Specifically, we hypothesize that the positive relationship between leader primary psychopathy on the one hand and self-serving behavior and abusive supervision on the other will be (...) weaker to the extent that the organizational context (clear rules and policies, sanctionability of misconduct, and transparency of behavior) is stronger. Three studies (one experiment, one survey of leader–subordinate dyads, and one survey of teams) showed that clear rules in particular weakened the positive association between leader primary psychopathic traits and their self-serving and abusive behavior. Explanations for why clear rules rein in primary psychopathic leaders’ destructive behavior more than sanctionability of misconduct and transparency of behavior will be discussed. (shrink)

We bring the distinct and complementary existentialist perspectives of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir to bear on the phenomenon of moral disengagement in managerial decision-making. Existentialist thinking is a rich source of insight on this phenomenon, because—as we demonstrate—the concept of moral disengagement overlaps significantly with the notion of ‘a consciousness in bad faith’ in Sartre’s writing, and the notion of ‘not willing oneself free’ in De Beauvoir’s writing. These concepts play a critical role in existentialist ethics, and thus (...) existentialists carefully deliberated the phenomenon that these concepts aim to illuminate. Rather than being motivated by self-interest as implied by the bulk of extant empirical work on moral disengagement, existentialist perspectives suggest that moral disengagement can instead be motivated by an overwhelming sense of responsibility towards diverse others. From an existentialist perspective, the temptation to morally disengage will not only be felt by individuals that have a strong, trait-like propensity for moral disengagement, but by managers in general. This temptation is likely to be felt in the specific context of right vs. right dilemmas, which have up to now rarely been studied by moral disengagement scholars. Even though existentialist thought paints the problem of moral disengagement as more widespread and entrenched in the human condition, it also suggests ways of preventing moral disengagement. In arguing for these preventative approaches, we make careful distinctions between Sartre and De Beauvoir, thereby becoming the first to argue that De Beauvoir offers a unique contribution to our understanding of ethical decision-making in management. (shrink)

We study the relationship between risk managers’ dark triad personality traits (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) and their selective hedging activities. Using a primary survey of 412 professional risk managers, we find that managers with dark personality traits are more likely to engage in selective hedging than those without. This effect is particularly pronounced for older, male, and less experienced risk managers. The effect is also stronger in smaller firms, less centralized risk management departments, and family-owned firms.

Recent instances of corporate misconduct and examples of blatant leader self-serving behavior have rekindled interest in leader personality traits as antecedents of negative leader behavior. The current research builds upon that work, and examines the relationship between leader psychopathy and leader self-serving behavior. Moreover, we investigate whether follower self-esteem affects the occurrence of self-serving behavior in leaders with psychopathic tendencies. We predict that self-serving behaviors by psychopathic leaders are more likely to occur in the interaction with followers low in self-esteem. (...) We first conducted an experimental study (N = 156), in which we manipulated follower self-esteem, measured leader psychopathy, and assessed their combined effect on leader self-serving behavior using an ultimatum game. We then conducted a multi-source field study (N = 124 leader-follower dyads) using questionnaires to assess leader psychopathy, follower self-esteem, and perceived leader self-serving behavior. Across both studies, we found that leader psychopathy was positively related to their self-serving behavior, but only when followers had low rather than high self-esteem. As expected, our studies showed that the degree to which (perceived) psychopathic traits of leaders are reflected in their behavior depends on the characteristics of their followers. Apparently, the behavioral expression of negative leader traits is not only a matter of the trait strength, but instead is the result of the interplay between leader and follower in a certain context. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been increasing concern about unethical conduct within corporate business, not least because of the scandalous behavior of former chief executives at top blue chip companies such as Enron, Worldcom, Parmalat, and Volkswagen. These scandals have not only threatened the privileged position of senior corporate employees but also the solvency of the companies they manage and lead. The high profile cases of corporate crime and corruption that occurred in the early 2000s together with the 2008 Wall (...) Street bailouts and the growth in criminal prosecutions since have raised the profile of business ethics to an unprecedented level. Greater public sensitivity toward and awareness about the unlawful and immoral conduct of firms in the United States and elsewhere, has created demand for organizations to become more accountable and socially responsible and prompted greater regulatory scrutiny. It has also served to highlight the embryonic and delimited state of research and scholarship on business ethics, where the focus has tended to remain on leadership. A neglected, though important, line of ethical enquiry concerns followership. Corporate wrongdoing would be less formidable and extensive if it was not aided and abetted. Two key questions arise. First, what prompts followers to support rather than oppose bad leaders? Second, what can be done to stem or at least curtail their allegiance to bad leaders? (shrink)

Workplace incivility is a current challenge in organizations, including smaller firms, as is the development of programs that enhance employees’ treatment of coworkers and ethical decision making. Ethics programs in particular might attenuate tendencies toward interpersonal misconduct, which can harm ethical reasoning. Consequently, this study evaluated the relationships among the presence of ethics codes and employees’ locus of control, social aversion/malevolence, and ethical judgments of incivility using information secured from a sample of businesspersons employed in smaller organizations. Results indicated that (...) ethics code presence was associated with a more internal locus of control and stronger ethical judgment of workplace incivility. Social aversion/malevolence was negatively related to ethical judgment, and internal locus of control was positively related to ethical judgment. Smaller firms should develop ethics codes to manage individuals’ perceptions of control, thus encouraging enhanced ethical reasoning in situations that involve the mistreatment of coworkers; they should also monitor counterproductive tendencies that harm such reasoning and precipitate incivility. (shrink)

The Emotional Competency Inventory framework of Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis has gained significant impact in business leadership and management development. This paper considers the composition of the various versions of the ECI and its successor the Emotional and Social Competency Inventory to determine the nature of any appeal to ethics or moral competence within these frameworks. A series of concerns regarding the ethical limitations of the frameworks are presented with arguments supported by the relevant literature across the Emotional Intelligence (...) , competency theory and ethics fields. Based on a review of the ECI competencies in terms of their definitional constructs, it appears possible for an unethical manager or leader to demonstrate EI competence. Several cases involving high-profile business leaders, who were once lauded but later found to have acted unethically, are analysed. The authors consider the capacity of unethical leaders and managers to fulfil EI competence an issue of concern. The inclusion of an ethical management cluster and a number of competencies based on virtue ethics is proposed to meet this concern. Such an inclusion would address the critical issue of the purpose to which an EI competence is applied. Argument supporting the value of a virtue ethics approach as opposed to utilitarian or duty-based ethics approaches is also presented. Finally, a proposed exemplar of an ethically informed ECI framework is included for consideration. (shrink)

Research has shown that individuals with high levels of psychopathic personality traits are likely to cause harm to others in the workplace. However, there is little academic literature on the potentially adaptive outcomes of corporate psychopathy, particularly because the “boldness” psychopathy domain has largely been under-acknowledged in this literature. This study aimed to elaborate on past findings by examining the associations between psychopathy, as operationalized using scales from the relatively new triarchic model of psychopathy, and both adaptive and maladaptive workplace (...) behaviors. Participants were 343 working community adults who completed a series of self-report questionnaires that measured psychopathy and various workplace behaviors, including counterproductive work behaviors, tactics of influence, unethical decision-making, leadership strategies, team play, and creativity. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate the associations between latent constructs of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition, and the eight different constructs related to workplace behaviors. It was found that boldness preferentially predicted the use of soft tactics of influence, adaptive leadership, and team play, and negatively predicted passive leadership. Meanness predicted unethical decision-making, poor team play, and hard tactics of influence. Disinhibition positively predicted CWB and passive leadership. Meanness also moderated the association between disinhibition and CWB, in that greater scores on both psychopathy domains indicated greater levels of CWB. These findings provide conceptual support for the triarchic model, including the “boldness” domain, which measures adaptive aspects of psychopathy in addition to maladaptive ones, as well as suggest that not all individuals high on psychopathy would be an overt menace to the workplace. The different psychopathy traits may also interact with each other to predict different types or levels of workplace behaviors. (shrink)

Since the beginning of business research and teaching, the basic assumptions of the discipline have been intensely debated. One of these basic assumptions concerns the behavioral aspects of human beings, which are traditionally represented in the construct of homo economicus. These assumptions have been increasingly challenged in light of findings from social, ethnological, psychological, and ethical research. Some publications from an integrative perspective have suggested that homo economicus embodies to a high degree dark character traits, particularly related to the construct (...) of psychopathy, representing individuals who are extremely self-centered and ruthless, without feelings of remorse or compassion. While a growing body of research notes such a similarity on a more or less anecdotal basis, this article aims to explore this connection from a more rigorous perspective, bridging insights from psychological, economic, and business research to better understand the potentially dark traits of homo economicus. The analysis shows that homo economicus is not simply some kind of psychopath, but specifically a so-called subclinical or Factor 1 psychopath, who is also referred to as a “corporate psychopath” in business research. With such an analysis, the paper adds an additional perspective and a deeper psychological level of understanding as to why homo economicus is often controversially debated. Based on these insights, several implications for academic research and teaching are discussed and reflected upon in light of an ethics of virtue and care. (shrink)

The purpose of this research is to present the major factors that lead to ethical dissolution in an organization. Specifically, drawing from a wide spectrum of sources, this study explores the impact of organizational, individual, and contextual factors that converge to contribute to ethical dissolution. Acknowledging that ethical decisions are, in the final analysis, made by individuals, this study presents a model of ethical dissolution that gives insight into how a variety of elements coalesce to draw individuals into decisions that (...) result in the ethical undoing of an otherwise healthy organization. ENRON, TYCO and WorldCom did not happen in a vacuum. Nor can such debacles be explained as simply one or two individuals who were morally corrupt. The ethical breakdowns that occurred in these companies happened over a period of time, involved numerous individuals both inside and outside of the organization, and brought about the implosion of viable companies. Seeking to extend the work of previous researchers, this study attempts to tie together a disparate set of factors into a cohesive explanation of ethical breakdowns in organizations. (shrink)

We extend the theory of secular business cults (SBCs) to manipulative businesses (MBs), which we define as a financially‐successful type of reformed SBC, and explain their influence on industry, government, and social environments. Prior work on irresponsible, illegally‐behaving, and anti‐social SBCs suggests that they arise when antisocial business leaders are left unconstrained. This article examines the other side of this argument: What emerges from the 'toxic triangle' when such leaders are constrained by legal limits? We posit that pressure from lawsuits (...) leads to the metamorphosis of an SBC into an MB that retains the intent and "formula of success" of the SBC. In both business types (SBCs and MBs), the underlying process involves the unethical manipulation of the employee's commitment, and the buyer's interest, through established policies and business models for higher profits. We further explain how the profit‐seeking anti‐social business leaders who find success in the toxic triangle lead to the emergence of manipulative policies and practices in businesses, legal systems, and industries (the “iron triangle”), and eventually influences general societal norms. (shrink)

We investigate the relationship between the dark triad personality traits (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) of managers and the practice of reporting manipulation using a primary survey of 837 professionals working in accounting and finance departments. We find that (a) managers who exhibit dark personality traits are associated with a higher prevalence of fraudulent accounting practices in their accounting and finance departments and (b) traditional risk management mechanisms are only partially effective in mitigating this effect. Internal audits are effective in curtailing (...) the negative behavior of managers with dark triad traits only if these internal audits are outsourced and performed by independent external personnel but not if they are conducted by internal personnel. This suggests that managers with dark triad traits are able to manipulate other employees quite effectively. Consequently, having external personnel perform the auditing task provides a safeguard against such unethical practices and manipulation. This finding has strong practical implications, as it provides support for outsourcing internal audits rather than keeping them in-house. (shrink)