Corporate Psychopaths Research Articles

Interpersonal and Affective Psychopathy Traits Can Enhance Human Fitness

Recently, attempts have been made to determine the evolutionary status of psychopathy. However, there is still a gap in empirical literature regarding the connection between psychopathy and fitness. In the present study, we explored the relations between the four-factor model of psychopathy and reproductive success as a fitness indicator in a sample of male convicts (N = 181). Direct relations were analyzed, together with the interaction effects between psychopathy and family risk factors (presence of criminality, substance abuse, and maltreatment in participants’ families). Basic regression models showed that the facet of interpersonal style is positively related to fitness, while other psychopathic characteristics had a negative connection with the criterion measure. Additionally, we found three significant interactions, which further clarified the relation between psychopathy and reproductive success. One of the interactions showed that affective traits can facilitate fertility in unfavorable environmental conditions. Results support a hypothesis of a possible adaptive function of psychopathy, broaden the concept of “successful psychopathy,” and confirm a view of psychopathy as a heterogeneous and complex construct, consisting of facets with distinct content.

Auditors’ experience with corporate psychopaths

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse auditors’ experience with corporate psychopaths in their client management.Design/methodology/approachThe research was conducted as a survey among Danish state-authorized auditors, to which 179 auditors responded, representing 9 per cent of the total population.FindingsOf the participating auditors, 69 per cent had experienced corporate psychopaths in their client management and 70 per cent of these had experienced more than one case. In addition, 43 per cent of the auditors who had experienced psychopathic managers reported that they had committed fraud. The vast majority of cases were detected in the execution and completion phases of the audit and resulted in increased professional scepticism, the use of more experienced auditors and the requirement for more and better audit evidence.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings confirm that corporate psychopaths actually exist and are a phenomenon worthy of research attention in areas such as accounting, auditing, internal control, fraud investigation, performance management and human resource management.Practical implicationsAs auditors are likely to come across corporate psychopaths from time to time in their careers, awareness of this type of risk needs to be increased and better integrated into the risk assessment in audit planning. Auditing standards relating to fraud also need to be updated according to the latest developments in fraud theory.Originality/valueThis is the first research to address auditors’ experience with corporate psychopaths. It adds value by confirming the relevance of the topic for practice and research.

The influence of corporate psychopaths on job satisfaction and its determinants

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate job satisfaction and workplace psychopathy.Design/methodology/approachJob satisfaction has previously been seen as a function of various constructs. The authors take one step back from the literature to re-examine the relationship not just between job satisfaction, workplace conflict, organizational constraints, withdrawal from the workplace and perceived levels of corporate social responsibility, but also between all of these constructs and the presence of corporate psychopaths.FindingsThe authors find that there is a direct link between corporate psychopaths and job satisfaction. There are also indirect links through variables such as conflict, since corporate psychopaths influence conflict and other variables.Originality/valueImportantly, the research establishes that psychopathy is the dominant predictor of job satisfaction.

The rise of the dark knight: Corporate psychopathy, leadership, and abusive supervision

The rise of the dark knight: Corporate psychopathy, leadership, and abusive supervision

Workplace Harassment: The influence of corporate psychopathy and the HEXACO model of personality

Bamboo tar is a water-insoluble semi-solid waste generated from bamboo charcoal processing, and its increasing accumulation threatens environment and sustainability of the charcoal industry that enhances the economic value of bamboo forestry in southern China. Here we converted bamboo tar to a completely water-soluble sodium salt through full alkalization with NaOH and evaluated its insecticidal activity against the cotton aphid Aphis gossypii, the soybean aphid Aphis glycines and the green peach aphid Myzus persicae in laboratory bioassays and field trials. The tar salt LC50s against the three global aphid pests decreased to 35–93 μg/ml on day 7 from 246 to 486 μg/ml on day 3. In three field trials, the tar salt at the application rates of 338–675 g/ha controlled the aphid pests as efficaciously as but more persistently than pymetrozine (a synthetic aphidicide) at the recommended rate. Our results highlight an easy approach to converting bamboo tar to a promising botanical aphidicide but extensive further work to determine its toxicity and environmental and crop safety is needed.

Validating the B‐Scan Self: A self‐report measure of psychopathy in the workplace

The surging interest in corporate psychopathy has underscored the need for a reliable and valid measure of psychopathic features that is suitable for research in organizational settings. The B‐Scan Self is a new self‐report measure of corporate psychopathy that was developed with Hare's Psychopathy Checklist‐Revised (PCL‐R) as a framework. Validity studies, using two independent Mechanical Turk samples, were designed to examine its factor structure and validity. Results indicated that B‐Scan Self facets were internally consistent and unidimentional and strongly related to another self‐report measure of psychopathy (SRP‐III). Confirmatory factor analyses supported a reliable fifteen facets and four‐factor model consistent with the PCL‐R four‐factor model of psychopathy. Furthermore, B‐Scan Self facets were positively correlated with the Dark Triad of personality traits and negatively correlated with FFM traits of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. More importantly, B‐Scan Self facets presented the same pattern of correlations with FFM traits as the SRP‐III and different patterns than the two other Dark Triad measures. Although this constitutes the first validation study of the B‐Scan Self and more research is needed, we believe that these results are encouraging and that the B‐Scan Self provides an opportunity to study psychopathic features through the measure of work‐related behavior.

Psicopatas corporativos: Eles existem e deterioram o clima organizacional

O presente artigo aborda o tema psicopata corporativo, termo que se refere a atuação de psicopatas no ambiente de trabalho. A pesquisa justifica-se pela necessidade das organizações de manterem o clima organizacional positivo na busca pela produtividade e competividade. Pesquisas apontam que depois dos presídios e manicômios judiciários é dentro das organizações que essas personalidades mais causam problemas. O estudo tem por objetivo identificar a ação do psicopata corporativo dentro das organizações e suas consequências ao clima organizacional. Para tal foi realizada uma revisão de literatura e uma pesquisa quantitativa com funcionários de empresas públicas e privadas. Observou-se que essas personalidades existem dentro das organizações, são identificadas pelos colegas e causam realmente transtornos e prejuízos para as empresas. Cabe a gestão de pessoas tentar impedir seu ingresso nas empresas ou desenvolver uma cultura organizacional forte, como uma barreira para a atuação dessas personalidades.

Relationship between the extent of psychopathic features among corporate managers and subsequent employee job satisfaction

Possessing subclinical psychopathic personality traits may provide a selective advantage in corporate environments. Known as ‘successful psychopaths’, these individuals often procure senior positions in respected companies. Prevalence of specific personality dispositions among leadership groups can promote a ‘corporate culture’ whereby subclinical psychopathic managers pressure their employees to embrace similar personality dispositions. As a result, these employees often demonstrate a greater vulnerability toward experiencing workplace psychological distress and developing a psychopathology. The current study aimed to examine the extent and effect of primary psychopathy in a major advertising agency. It was predicted that there would be greater levels of primary psychopathy in senior-level managers, and that this would result in their subordinate's decreased job satisfaction. Results indicated that greater levels of primary psychopathy were predominately observed within senior-level managers compared to the other corporate designations. Additionally, it was apparent that senior-level managers valued homogeneity in their subordinates' personality and behaviour, which were identified by high conformance and dependability ratings. However, the role of primary psychopathy in attenuating subordinate job satisfaction was less clear.

Unethical 20th century business leaders

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present evidence to examine the possible psychopathy of Robert Maxwell, a notorious figure in UK business history. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents research which retrospectively applied a tool to measure whether leading figures in twentieth century business history could be classified as being corporate psychopaths. As background to this idea, psychopaths and corporate psychopaths are defined. A measure of corporate psychopathy is explored as an aid to identifying corporate psychopaths in business history. This measure is then used in relation to senior corporate executives who have been nominated as potential corporate psychopaths and to Robert Maxwell in particular. Findings The paper concludes that at least some ethical scandals and failures such as those at The Daily Mirror have been characterized by the presence of CEOs who scored highly on a measure of corporate psychopathy. Maxwell’s fraudulent raiding of corporate pension funds crossed ethical and legal borders. Furthermore, Maxwell’s fraudulent looting of those pension funds crossed generational boundaries; stealing from older people’s pension funds and thereby leaving younger people/investors with less to inherit. Maxwell also had an international business empire and so his fraud had effects which crossed geographic borders. The paper concludes that using an historical approach to the study of potential corporate psychopaths illuminates what types of organizational outcomes corporate psychopaths may eventuate. Originality/value The paper is the first to use an historical approach to the study of potential corporate psychopaths.

Of Boldness and Badness: Insights into Workplace Malfeasance from a Triarchic Psychopathy Model Perspective

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 (boldness, meanness, and disinhibition), 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 (CWB), 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.

Moral Emotions and Corporate Psychopathy: A Review

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 (positive vs. negative signal) and target (self vs. other). 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.

Marketing in a time of toxic leadership

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to make a contribution to knowledge by examining what happens to marketing in a time of toxic leadership, embodied in a corporate psychopath, in response to a call for marketers to seek a broader understanding of how marketing operates within organisations. Design/methodology/approach – Commentators have suggested that concepts outside the usual marketing domain may aid in the gaining of an intra-organisational understanding of how marketing operates. Here, the concept of corporate psychopathy was used to identify a psychopathic UK board director and chief executive officer (CEO) via a constructivist approach to research involving six in-depth interviews. A CEO and a main board director who were measurably psychopathic were studied via these reports. Findings – The paper examines how corporate psychopaths, as archetypal toxic leaders, are detrimental to marketing. Overseeing the marketing function within the UK part of an established and well-branded multi-national services company, corporate psychopaths capriciously dismantled the marketing initiatives that were in place and needlessly abandoned future marketing plans. Marketing services, marketing ethics, product quality and corporate reputation declined. Good marketers left. Practical implications – The research demonstrates the dangers to marketing of toxic leadership. The paper also suggests that marketing may be uniquely qualified to deal with toxic leaders because it can, through research, identify them through their effects and behaviour. The results illustrate the value of longitudinal qualitative market research in investigating complex organisational situations. Originality/value – The paper makes a unique contribution to the marketing field by empirically investigating, for the first time, the influence of a corporate psychopath director and a psychopathic CEO on the marketing function and practice. The research was conducted longitudinally using qualitative market research techniques via in-depth interviews over a two-year period. Longitudinal research aids in establishing causality, and this was evident in this research, as the negative influence of psychopathic leadership was monitored over time.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Psychopathic personality characteristics amongst high functioning populations

ABSTRACTIn recent years there has been a substantial increase in publications on the topic of the so-called corporate psychopath, and a number of theories have been proposed to account for these higher functioning manifestations of psychopathy. It is acknowledged that psychopathy is most commonly found in criminal, rather than community samples, with estimated prevalence rates being 20% and 1% respectively. Recent research has found rates of psychopathy in business populations, assessed using various psychopathy measures, ranging from 4% to 20%. There has been debate in the literature surrounding the core defining features of psychopathy, and whether antisocial/ criminal behavior is a necessary aspect of the personality construct. This debate is crucial to the definition and measurement of psychopathy in the corporate context with some arguing that the core characteristics of psychopathy are incompatible with successful functioning. The current article reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on c...

Corporate psychopathy and abusive supervision: Their influence on employees' job satisfaction and turnover intentions

Dark leaders have been characterized as abusive; they exhibit hostile verbal and non-verbal behaviors and rudeness towards employees. Abusive leadership has also been shown to have negative impacts on employee and organizational performance. However, very few studies have examined the underlying factors of dark leadership. This study proposes to test the relationship between corporate psychopathy traits and abusive supervision, employees' job satisfaction and intention to quit their job. A total of 97 employees from a non-profit organization completed measures of their abusive supervision and corporate psychopathy traits as well as self-report measures of job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Corporate psychopathy was positively and significantly correlated with abusive supervision and turnover intentions and negatively correlated with employees' job satisfaction. SEM results indicate that, although the B-Scan 360 has a direct influence on turnover intentions, it influences job satisfaction through abusive supervision behavior. Our results indicate psychopathy may be an underlying factor explaining abusive supervision which is detrimental to employee attitudes.

Organisational psychopaths: a ten year update

Purpose– This current paper reviews the theoretical speculations concerning psychopaths in the workplace that were originally presented in a paper published in this journal in 2006. The 2006 paper was called: “The Dark Side of Management Decisions: Organisational Psychopaths”.Design/methodology/approach– This is a review of the literature on workplace psychopaths since 2006.Findings– This current paper determines that while many of these prior speculations about workplace psychopaths have since been supported by evidence, several others remain unexplored. This finding suggests that several important avenues for further research remain in this important area. In particular, links between corporate psychopaths, bullying and lowered corporate social responsibility have been established. On the other hand, links between corporate psychopaths, career advancement, fraud, and corporate failure as exemplified in the 2007 global financial crisis, have been under-explored.Social implications– Corporate psychopaths are worthy of further research because of their impact on society, for example on corporate social responsibility and their willingness to dump toxic waste material illegally.Originality/value– The paper provides an extensive review of research into corporate psychopaths to date and highlights areas where further investigation would be potentially rewarding.

The first condition of the Successful psychopath; Development of Japanese Self-Report Psychopathy Scale Short-form

The first condition of the Successful psychopath; Development of Japanese Self-Report Psychopathy Scale Short-form

Successful Psychopathy

Long the stuff of clinical lore, successful psychopathy has recently become the focus of research. Although numerous authors have conjectured that psychopathic traits are sometimes associated with occupational or interpersonal success, rigorous evidence for this assertion has thus far been minimal. We provide a status report on successful-psychopathy research, address controversies surrounding successful psychopathy, examine evidence for competing models of this construct, and offer desiderata for future research.

Tell me who you are, I'll tell you how you lead: Beyond the Full-Range Leadership Model, the role of corporate psychopathy on employee attitudes

The role of corporate psychopathic traits in supervisors on employee attitudes has yet to be studied. The goal of the present study is to test the impact of corporate psychopathy in leaders on their employee's attitudes and its impact above and beyond the influence of leadership styles associated with the Full-Range Leadership Model (Transformational, Transactional and Laissez-Faire leadership). A total of 74 supervisors and 423 subordinates participated in this study. Employees completed self-report measures of job satisfaction, turnover intentions, work motivation and job neglect. They also rated their immediate supervisor on the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire and the B-Scan 360 (a corporate psychopathy measure). Hierarchical linear regressions indicated that the B-Scan 360 total score was the best predictor of employee's job satisfaction, turnover intentions, work motivation and job neglect (beyond the influence of the Full Range leadership Model). These results indicate that, for our sample, the B-Scan 360 is a stronger predictor of employee attitudes than the three leadership styles comprising the Full-Range Leadership Model. These results represent a stepping stone for future research trying to unravel the factors associated with dark leadership and its impact on employee attitudes.

Corporate psychopathy: deviant workplace behaviour and toxic leaders (part two)

Purpose – Increasingly, it is recognized that (larger) organizations have many employees who present with corporate psychopathy (i.e. a milder version of anti-social personality disorder). Importantly, such a disorder contributes to the presence of deviant workplace behavior. Organizations must therefore adapt its practices to both identify and manage employees who either present with, or have tendencies toward, corporate psychopathy. As a means of developing a guiding framework for organizational adaptation, this two part paper offers two reviews of relevant research. The first revolves around the body of knowledge regarding corporate psychopathy and the primary, established behavioral method of identifying its presence; the second is a brief review on physiological measures that can complement current gold standards. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – A range of published empirical and practitioner research articles were reviewed to first, elaborate on anti-social personality disorder and corporate psychopathy; second, showcase the efficacy of the currently most accepted method of detecting psychopathic behavior – the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL); and third, highlight physiological methods of detecting psychopathic tendencies which may complement usage of the PCL – electroencephalography, measurement of galvanic skin responses, and electromyography. Findings – First, deviant workplace behaviors cause losses of billions of dollars across all business organizations, and much of this behavior stems from corporate psychopaths in positions of leadership. Second, the PCL, while useful, can nonetheless yield sharp differences in the identification of psychopathy across different administrators of the test. Third, measures of physiological states show good reliability in discriminating psychopathic persons from non-psychopathic persons. Based on these findings, the authors propose guidelines for how to identify and mitigate the effects of corporate psychopathy for organizations. Research limitations/implications – The proposed guidelines must be tested in an empirical paper to measure their effectiveness. Practical implications – The paper suggests an overall framework that may help leaders and organizational development practitioners identify the major factors which may be considered to safeguard against the potentially detrimental conduct of corporate psychopaths in their organizations. Social implications – This paper highlights the need to identify and ward against the presence of corporate psychopaths. There needs to be guidelines for organizations on how to identify and mitigate the effects of corporate psychopathy for organizations. Originality/value – The suggestion of integrating physiological methods of detection with the PCL, as well as urging pro-active education of all employees as the symptoms and effects of corporate psychopathy, is the novel contribution of the paper.

Extreme managers, extreme workplaces: Capitalism, organizations and corporate psychopaths

This article reports on qualitative research carried out in England in 2013. Participants were five organizational directors and two senior managers who had worked with six corporate psychopaths, as determined by a management psychopathy measure. The corporate psychopaths reported on displayed consistency in their approach to management. This approach was marked by high levels of abusive control. The corporate psychopaths were seen as being organizational stars and as deserving of awards by those above them, while they simultaneously subjected those below them to extreme behaviour, including bullying, intimidation and coercion. The corporate psychopaths also engaged in extreme forms of mismanagement characterized by poor personnel management, directionless leadership, mismanagement of resources and fraud.