The Dark Triad in the organizational setting: The prediction of employees' commitment

Abstract

Socially aversive behaviour, a hallmark of people who score high on the Dark Triad (DT) personality traits, is, in the business environment, intractably associated with behaviours which - directly or indirectly - obstruct attainment of the mission and the goals set by the organization. On the other hand, commitment of employees is a protective factor of productive organizational behaviour. The primary objective of this study was to investigate the association of the DT traits and the commitment to four targets (CTs): towards the organization, career, profession and/or colleagues. Our secondary objective was to investigate the possible moderator effects of the hierarchical position within the organization and the ownership structure (a public or a private-owned company) on the association between the DT traits and different CTs. For this purpose, 210 employed women and 140 employed men from public and private-owned companies were administered the Short Dark Triad and the KUT (Klein et al. Unidimensional Target-free) commitment psychometric scales. Our data suggest that there was a weak, yet a statistically significant predictive relationship between the DT traits and all four CTs. Psychopathy and Machiavellianism hindered the commitment of employees, especially its targets involving group objectives and interactions (commitment towards the organization and towards colleagues). When personal and organizational objectives coincide, narcissism may be productive. Moderator variables had an effect only on narcissism-related commitment towards the organization and the profession. This effect was more pronounced among the workers of the public organizations and among the employees. Our data contribute to the mapping of the nomological network of contemporary (counter) productive job-related behaviour.

Keywords

• the Dark Triad
• workplace commitment
• ownership structure
• hierarchical structure of employees