Narcissism and Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB): Meta‐Analysis and Consideration of Collectivist Culture, Big Five Personality, and Narcissism's Facet Structure

Abstract

A recent review of the relationship between narcissism and CWB reported two key results: (a) narcissism is the dominant predictor of CWB among the dark triad personality traits, and (b) the narcissism–CWB relationship is moderated by ingroup collectivist culture (k = 9; N = 2,708; O'Boyle, Forsyth, Banks, & McDaniel, 2012). The current work seeks to enhance understanding of the narcissism–CWB relationship in five ways. First, we update O'Boyle et al.'s (2012) meta‐analysis to include over 50 per cent more data (k = 16; N = 4,424), and demonstrate that narcissism remains the largest unique predictor of CWB after controlling for the Big Five personality traits. Second, we reveal that O'Boyle and colleagues' inference of cross‐cultural moderation hinges on a single dataset from Bangladesh. Third, based on an original international dataset of on‐line respondents, we reaffirm that ingroup collectivist culture does moderate/weaken the narcissism–CWB relationship. Fourth, we show that the narcissism–CWB relationship is stronger in published (corrected r = .48) versus unpublished studies (corrected r = .15). Finally, we propose a new moderator of the narcissism–CWB relationship: narcissism's facets. One facet (Entitlement/Exploitativeness) relates positively to CWB, whereas another facet of narcissism (Leadership/Authority) relates negatively to CWB.