Dark triad characteristics between economics &amp; business students in Croatia &amp; Slovakia: what can be expected from the future employees?

Mario Bogdanović,Milota Vetráková,Stanislav Filip

doi:10.9770/jesi.2018.5.4(19)

Abstract

This paper deals with the dark triad personality and its components (Machiavellianism, narcissism, subclinical psychopathy) on economics & management student population in Croatia and Slovakia. Dark Triad represent important HRM area in which is trying to understand the dark side of human functioning which has potentially harmful impact on organization functioning and performance. Population of economics & management students is important in the context of HRM because of their future high potential to generate dysfunctional organizational behaviors, when they will be organizational employees, especially on management positions. The goal of this research was to gather the data about dark triad personality phenomenon, make the comparisons between Croatian and Slovak sample, present the potential organizational impact of employees with dark characteristics in organizational context and show the implications for HRM. For measurement of the dark triad components (variables) it is used questionnaire measurement that adopts the standardized short dark triad measurement instrument of Jones & Paulhus. Results of the Croatian students are compared with the results of Slovak students, and basically also with Canadian student sample. The basic results showed that 6% Croatian and 0.5% of Slovak economy & management students showed full dark triad profile, also there are found very significant statistical differences in the Machiavellianism and subclinical psychopathy variables between the Croatian and Slovak samples, i.e. these characteristics were statistically higher in Croatian sample.

Highlights

For organization and management is important to know every factor which create optimal conditions for increasing the efficacy of working force/employees
This paper deals with the “dark triad” personality and its components (Machiavellianism, narcissism, subclinical psychopathy) on economics & management student population in Croatia and Slovakia
The basic results showed that 6% Croatian and 0.5% of Slovak economy & management students showed full dark triad profile, there are found very significant statistical differences in the Machiavellianism and subclinical psychopathy variables between the Croatian and Slovak samples, i.e. these characteristics were statistically higher in Croatian sample

Summary

Introduction

For organization and management is important to know every factor which create optimal conditions for increasing the efficacy of working force/employees. In such a context employers and HRM professionals are interested to know which desirable characteristics employees should have, and what to do if they do not have such desirable characteristics, or what to do when they even have negative, e.g. dark triad characteristics. It is showed that it is very important to understand “dark side” personality which can have significant (mostly negatively) impact in organizational context. It is important to note, that in any organization reality there is no organization that doesn’t embody some form of pathology (Hawley according to Lučić, 2013)

Objectives

Methods

Results