Central European Business Review 2015, 4(4):30-47

Dark Triad of Croatian Management Students

Mario Bogdanovic1, Domagoj Cingula2
1 Mario Bogdanovic, Ph.D., Faculty of Economics, University of Split, Assistant Professor, Senior Research Associate, Management Department, Cvite Fiskovica 5, 21.000 Split, Croatia, mbogdan2011@gmail.com
2 Domagoj Cingula, Ph.D. student, Varazdin Development and Entrepreneurship Agency, Croatia, dcingula@esd-conference.com

This paper researches the so-called "dark triad" personality traits of management student populations, because of their potential to generate dysfunctional organizational behavior and processes. Namely, the dark triad with characteristics such as lack of empathy, willingness to manipulate others (for self-betterment), antagonism, and belief in one's own superiority can represent a real organizational threat. The goal of this paper is to stimulate thinking and discussion around this issue. The paper is based on questionnaire measurement that adopts the standardized short dark triad measurement instrument of Jones and Paulhus (2012) who measure the scales of Machiavellianism (9 items), narcissism (9 items) and psychopathy (9 items). The sample included 150 students of professional management studies at the Faculty of Economics, University of Split in Croatia. Results of the Croatian students are compared with the results of 387 students in Canada. The results suggest significant statistical differences in the "dark triad" variables between the Canadian and Croatian samples. The practical implications of this paper are in raising awareness and stimulating the thinking of managers around the potential of the "dark triad" traits of engaged human resources to create organizational crisis, and to make preventive and responsive actions to manage the "toxic triad" threat.

Keywords: Dark triad; Machiavellianism; narcissism; psychopathy; human resource management; organizational management; organizational pathology; organizational culture, climate
JEL classification: M12, M5

Received: September 22, 2015; Revised: December 14, 2015; Published: December 31, 2015  Show citation

ACS AIP APA ASA Harvard Chicago Chicago Notes IEEE ISO690 MLA NLM Turabian Vancouver
Bogdanovic, M., & Cingula, D. (2015). Dark Triad of Croatian Management Students. Central European Business Review, 4(4), 30-47
Download citation
  • BibTeX (.bib)
  • Bookends (.ris)
  • EasyBib (.ris)
  • EndNote (.enw)
  • EndNote 8 (.xml)
  • ISI WoS (.isi)
  • Medlars (.medlars)
  • Mendeley (.ris)
  • MODS (.xml)
  • Papers (.ris)
  • RefWorks (.txt)
  • RefManager (.ris)
  • RIS (.ris)
  • MS Word (.xml)
  • Zotero (.ris)
    • Open full article

    References

    1. Alvesson, M., & Spicer, A. (2012). A Stupidity-Based Theory of Organizations. Journal of Management Studies, 49(7), 1194-1220. Go to original source...
    2. Arvan, M. (2013). Bad news for conservatives? Moral judgments and the Dark Triad personality traits: A correlational study. Neuroethics, 6(2), 307-318. Go to original source...
    3. Baughman, H. M., Dearing, S., Giammarco, E., & Vernon, P. A. (2011). Relationships between bullying behaviours and the Dark Triad. Personality and Individual Differences, 52, 571-575. Go to original source...
    4. Black, P. J. (2013). The Dark Triad and interpersonal assessment of vulnerability: Cues used and accuracy. Master thesis. Faculty of graduate study in Psychology University of British Columbia.
    5. Boddy, C. R. (2015). Psychopathic leadership a case study of a corporate psychopath CEO. Journal of Business Ethics, 1-16. Go to original source...
    6. Bogdanovic, M. (2014). By spirituality management against stupidity management in a function of accelerated development. 3rd International Scientific Symposium Economy of Eastern Croatia - Vision and Growth, Osijek 22nd - 24th May 2014, Croatia: 572-593.
    7. Bradlee, P. M., & Emmons, R. A. (1992). Locating narcissism within the interpersonal circumplex and the Five-Factor model. Personality and Individual Differences, 13(7), 821- 830. Go to original source...
    8. Chabrol, H., van Leeuwen, N., Rodgers, R., & Séjourné, N. (2009). Contributions of psychopathic, narcissistic, Machiavellian, and sadistic personality traits to juvenile delinquency. Personality and Individual Differences, 47(7), 734-739. Go to original source...
    9. Culham, T. E. (2013). Ethics Education of Business Leaders: Emotional Intelligence, Virtues, and Contemplative Learning (Transforming Education for the Future). Charlotte: Information Age Publishing, Inc.
    10. Einarsen, S., Aasland, M. S., & Skogstad, A. (2007). Destructive leadership behaviour: A definition and conceptual model. The Leadership Quarterly, 18(3), 207-216. Go to original source...
    11. Fischbacher-Smith, D. (2015). The enemy has passed through the gate: Insider threats, the dark triad, and challenges around security. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 2(2), 134-156. Go to original source...
    12. Fry, L. W., & Altman, Y. (2013). Spiritual Leadership in Action: The CEL Story Achieving Extraordinary Results Through Ordinary People. (Advances in Workplace Spirituality: Theory, Research, and Practice). Charlotte: Information Age Publishing Inc.
    13. Furnham, A. (2010). The Elephant in Boardroom: The Causes of Leadership Derailment. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
    14. Furnham, A., Richards, R.C, & Paulhus, D. L. (2013). The Dark Triad of Personality: A 10 Year Review. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(3), 199-216. Go to original source...
    15. Hartel, C. E. J. et al. (2014). Developing Ethical Leaders: A Servant Leadership Approach. In L. E. Sekerka (Ed.), Ethics Training in Action: An Examination of Issues, Techniques, and Development (pp. 271-291). Charlotte: Information Age Publishing, Inc.
    16. Jonason, P. K., Slomski, S., & Partyka, J. (2012). The Dark Triad at work: How toxic employees get their way. Personality and Individual Differences, 52, 449-453. Go to original source...
    17. Jonason, P. K., Wee, S., & Li, N.P. (2015). Competition, autonomy, and prestige: Mechanisms through which the Dark Triad predict job satisfaction, Personality and Individual Differences, 72, 112-116. Go to original source...
    18. Jones, D. N., & Paulhus, D. L. (2012). Introducing the Short Dark Triad (SD3): A brief measure of dark personalities. Journal of Research in Personality, under revision. Go to original source...
    19. Landes, D. S. (2003). Bogatstvo i siromastvo naroda: Zasto su neki tako bogati, a neki tako siromasni. [Wealth and poverty of the nations: Why some are so rich and some so poor]. Zagreb: Masmedia.
    20. Lucic, M. (2013). Istina je najvaznija: Intervju s Jackom Hawleyem. [Truth is the most important: Interview with Jack Hawley], qLife, 5(2), 45-58.
    21. Malnick, E. (2013). Why your boss could easily be a psychopath. The Telegraph. Retrieved July 28, 2013, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/newstopics/howaboutthat/9828914/Why-your-boss-could-easily-be-a-psychopath-html.
    22. O'Boyle, E. H. et al. (2012). A Meta-Analysis of the Dark Triad and Work Behavior: A Social Exchange Perspective. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(3), 557-579. Go to original source...
    23. O'Boyle, E. H. et al. (2011). The relation between emotional intelligence and job performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 32(5), 788-818. Go to original source...
    24. Ozimec, S. (2001). Nasi mentaliteti. [Our mentality]. Varazdinske Topice: Tonimir. Bibilioteka posebna izdanja.
    25. Pastuovic, N. (1999). Edukologija: integralna znanost o sustavu odgoja i obrazovanja [Educology: the integral science about the education system]. Zagreb: Znamen.
    26. Paulhus, D. L., & Jones, D. N. (2011). Introducing a short measure of the Dark Triad. Poster presented at the meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, San Antonio.
    27. Paulhus, D. L., & Williams, K. M. (2002). The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality, 36(6), 556-563. Go to original source...
    28. Plumridge, N. (2013). The Dark Triad. Retrieded July 13, 2014 from http://psychminds.com/the-dark-triad/.
    29. Samnani, A. (2013). Embracing New directions in Workplace Bullying Research: A Paradigm Approach. Journal of Management Inquiry, 22(26), 26-36. Go to original source...
    30. Yatzeck, E. (2012). Beware the Dark Triad: Your Worst Change Management Nightmare. Pragmatic Agilist. Retrieved July 28, 2013 from http://pagilista.blogspot.ae/2012/12/beware-dark-triad-your-worst-change.html.
    31. Zuroff, D. C., Fournier, M. A., Patall, E. A., & Leybman, M. J. (2010). Steps toward an evolutionary personality psychology: Individual differences in social rank domain. Canadian Psychology, 51(1), 58-66. Go to original source...

    This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY NC ND 4.0), which permits non-comercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.


    Return to the content