Grandiose and vulnerable narcissism and regulatory focus at work in relation to strengths use and deficit correction in the workplace

Abstract

Extant research has shown that grandiose narcissism predicts a wide range of work-related outcomes. However, despite differentiating in the social-personality literature besides grandiose narcissism also its vulnerable form, there is little organizational research that would include both expressions of narcissism, in particular with regard to positive organizational behaviors, including strengths use and deficit correction in the workplace. In addition, the role of dark-side personality traits, such as narcissism, in predicting strengths use and deficit correction in the workplace, in particular in regard to motivational factors, seems understudied. Accordingly, this study adds to the literature on narcissism in the organizational context by investigating the direct effects of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism and motivational orientation in the form of regulatory focus at work on strengths use and deficit correction in the workplace. Based on a sample of 446 working adults from the Polish population, it was found that grandiose narcissism positively predicted both strengths use and deficit correction. In turn, vulnerable narcissism was unrelated to strengths use and deficit correction. Furthermore, drawing on the distal-proximal model of work-specific regulatory focus, it also tested whether regulatory focus at work has the incremental validity over grandiose and vulnerable narcissism in predicting strengths use and deficit correction. The hierarchical regression analyses indicated that both promotion and prevention focus were positively associated with strengths use and deficit correction, predicting them beyond grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. The theoretical and practical implications of this study in the context of narcissism in the workplace and positive organizational scholarship are discussed.