Corporate Psychopaths,Conflict, Employee Affective Well-Being and Counterproductive Work Behaviour

This article explains who Corporate Psychopaths are, and some of the processes by which they stimulate counterproductive work behaviour among employees. The article hypothesizes that conflict and bullying will be higher, that employee affective well-being will be lower and that frequencies of counterproductive work behaviour will also be higher in the presence of Corporate Psychopaths. Research was conducted among 304 respondents in Britain in 2011, using a psychopathy scale embedded in a self-completion management survey. The article concludes that Corporate Psychopaths have large and significant impacts on conflict and bullying and employee affective well-being; these have large and significant impacts on counterproductive work behaviour. There is no difference between male and female degrees of negative reaction to the presence of managers who are Corporate Psychopaths.     

The Influence of Corporate Psychopaths on Corporate Social Responsibility and Organizational Commitment to Employees

This study investigated whether employee perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) were associated with the presence of Corporate Psychopaths in corporations. The article states that, as psychopaths are 1% of the population, it is logical to assume that every large corporation has psychopaths working within it. To differentiate these people from the common perception of psychopaths as being criminals, they have been called “Corporate Psychopaths” in this research. The article presents quantitative empirical research into the influence of Corporate Psychopaths on four perceptual measures of CSR and three further measures of organizational commitment to employees. The article explains who Corporate Psychopaths are and delineates the measures of CSR and organizational commitment to employees that were used. It then outlines the research conducted among 346 corporate employees in Australia in 2008. The reliability of the instrument used is commented on favorably in terms of its statistical reliability and its face and external validity. Results of the research are described showing the highly significant and negative influence of Corporate Psychopaths on all of the measures of CSR and of organizational commitment to employees used in the research. When Corporate Psychopaths are present in leadership positions within organizations, employees are less likely to agree with views that: the organization does business in a socially desirable manner; does business in an environmentally friendly manner and that the organization does business in a way that benefits the local community. Also, when Corporate Psychopaths are present in leadership positions within organizations, employees are significantly less likely to agree that the corporation does business in a way that shows commitment to employees, significantly less likely to feel that they receive due recognition for doing a good job, to feel that their work was appreciated and to feel that their efforts were properly rewarded. The article argues that academics and researchers in the area of CSR cannot ignore the influence of individual managers. This is particularly the case when those managers have dysfunctional personalities, or are actually psychopaths. The article further argues that the existence of Corporate Psychopaths should be of interest to those involved in corporate management and corporate governance because their presence influences the way corporations are run and how corporations affect society and the environment.     

Victim and Culprit? The Effects of Entitlement and Felt Accountability on Perceptions of Abusive Supervision and Perpetration of Workplace Bullying

Although workplace bullying is common and has universally harmful effects on employees’ outcomes, little is known about workplace bullies. To address this gap in knowledge, we draw from the tenets of social exchange and displaced aggression theories in order to develop and test a model of workplace bullying that incorporates the effects of employees’ individual differences (i.e., entitlement), perceptions of their work environments (i.e., felt accountability), and perceptions of supervisory treatment (i.e., perceptions of abusive supervision) on their tendencies to bully coworkers. The results of mediated moderation analyses that examine responses from two samples of working adults (n _{Sample 1} = 396; n _{Sample 2} = 123) support our hypotheses. Specifically, we find evidence of an indirect relationship between entitlement and coworker bullying through perceptions of abusive supervision that is stronger for employees who report lower levels of felt accountability than employees who report higher levels of felt accountability. This study makes important theoretical and practical contributions to abusive supervision research, bullying research, and organizational efforts to promote ethical work environments devoid of interpersonal mistreatment by providing novel insight into how employees’ entitlement and felt accountability combine to influence their tendencies to perceive themselves as victims of abusive supervision and culprits of coworker bullying.     

About to Burst: How State Self-Regulation Affects the Enactment of Bullying Behaviors

Past research has demonstrated that employees’ perceptions of abusive supervision are positively associated with the enactment of bullying behaviors. However, an investigation of the factors influencing employees’ decision to bully others at work has yet to be completed. In this study, we propose that the relationship between perceptions of abusive supervision and the enactment of bullying behaviors is mediated by state self-regulation, and that active coping moderates the relationship between state self-regulation and bullying. Further, we analyze how the situational context (e.g., positive or negative) affects employees’ levels of self-regulatory resource depletion and ultimately, the extent to which they engage in bullying behaviors. A moderated mediation analysis using time-separated data (N = 136) provided support for our hypotheses, suggesting that employees’ state self-regulation helps explain why abusive supervision is associated with bullying and that active coping helps to reduce bullying behaviors. Further, the results suggest that negative environments are associated with more bullying. Contributions, practical implications, and future research directions are discussed.     

The Corporate Psychopaths Theory of the Global Financial Crisis

This short theoretical paper elucidates a plausible theory about the Global Financial Crisis and the role of senior financial corporate directors in that crisis. The paper presents a theory of the Global Financial Crisis which argues that psychopaths working in corporations and in financial corporations, in particular, have had a major part in causing the crisis. This paper is thus a very short theoretical paper but is one that may be very important to the future of capitalism because it discusses significant ways in which Corporate Psychopaths may have acted recently, to the detriment of many. Further research into this theory is called for.     

Eating their cake and everyone else's cake, too: Resources as the main ingredient to workplace bullying

This article examines workplace bullying from a personal resources perspective. As workplace bullying emerges in unsupportive and stressful work environments, the threat of personal resource loss triggers the low cost, high reward resource-seeking behaviors that are typically reported as indicative of bullies in the workplace bullying research. Herein, we propose that these resource-seeking bullying behaviors allow bullies to create reinforcing resource gain cycles for them, but also create reinforcing resource loss cycles for targets and bystanders of bullying. As a potential remedy, we discuss recommendations for organizations to reduce the occurrence of workplace bullying.     

Quality of Leadership and Workplace Bullying: The Mediating Role of Social Community at Work in a Two-Year Follow-Up Study

The theoretical and empirical link between leadership and workplace bullying needs further elaboration. The aim of the study is to examine the relationship between quality of leadership and the occurrence of workplace bullying 2 years later. Furthermore, we aim to examine a possible mechanism from leadership to bullying using social community at work as mediator. Using survey data that were collected at two different points in time (2006–2008) among 1664 workers from 60 Danish workplaces, we examined the total, direct and indirect effects between quality of leadership and workplace bullying. Our results indicate that quality of leadership plays a role in establishing working conditions that lead to workplace bullying. Furthermore, social community at work fully mediates the effect of poor quality of leadership on workplace bullying. This longitudinal study adds to previous cross-sectional studies on the substantial role played by leaders in the bullying process. Within the leadership–bullying relationship, social community at work acts as a full mediator, adding a significant contribution to the discussion of mechanisms involved in the bullying process. Plausible explanations of this mechanism and practical implications are discussed.     

Exposure to workplace bullying and negative gossip behaviors: Buffering roles of personal and contextual resources

This study adds to business ethics research by investigating how employees' exposure to workplace bullying might spur their negative gossip behaviors, as well as how this effect might be buffered by their access to two personal resources (religiosity and innovation propensity) and two contextual resources (work meaningfulness and trust in top management). Survey data collected among Canadian-based employees who work in the religious sector reveal that workplace bullying increases the likelihood that they spread negative rumors about other organizational members, but this effect is weaker when employees (1) can draw from their religious faith, (2) are motivated to generate innovative ideas, (3) derive meaning from their work, and (4) have confidence in the trustworthiness of top management. For management scholars and practitioners, this study thus pinpoints different resources that diminish the risk that workplace bullying infuses work environments with even more negative energy, as might occur if bullying spills over into additional, negative gossip behaviors.     

The Empire Strikes Back: Digital Control of Unfair Terms of Online Services

The authors argue that it is possible to partly automate the process of abstract control of fairness of clauses in online consumer contracts. The authors present a theoretical and empirical argument for this claim, including a brief presentation of the software they have designed. This type of automation would not replace human lawyers but would assist them and make their work more effective and efficient. Policy makers should direct their attention to the potential of using algorithmic techniques in enforcing the law regarding unfair contractual terms, and to facilitating research on and ultimately implementing such technologies.     

Diagnosing a firm's internal environment for corporate entrepreneurship

Apple, 3M, Procter & Gamble, and Google know the importance of an internal environment supportive of innovative activity. But how is that environment identified or measured? As research on corporate entrepreneurial activity has evolved, numerous researchers have acknowledged the importance of internal organizational dimensions to promoting and supporting an environment for innovation. This research has identified five specific dimensions that are important determinants of an environment conducive to entrepreneurial behavior: (1) top management support, (2) work discretion/autonomy, (3) rewards/reinforcement, (4) time availability, and (5) organizational boundaries. If an organization is serious about developing an internal environment conducive to entrepreneurial activity, then it must seek to measure the specific dimensions associated with an innovative environment. In this article we introduce an instrument, the Corporate Entrepreneurship Assessment Instrument (CEAI), as a diagnostic tool used for assessing managers’ perceptions of the five major dimensions critical to creating an entrepreneurial/innovative environment. This instrument provides an indication of a firm's likelihood of being able to successfully implement an innovative strategy, and highlights areas of the internal work environment that should be the focus of ongoing development efforts.     

Employees' awareness of their impact on corporate reputation

Corporate reputation is critical for cultivating stakeholder relationships and, specifically, for regaining public trust. Corporate reputation results from the firm's interactions with stakeholders, emphasizing the important role employees play in reputation management. However, employees are not necessarily aware of, or prepared for, this extra-role assignment, indicating a gap in research and a managerial challenge. The purpose of the present article is to identify how employees' awareness of their impact on their employers' reputation is influenced by pride, job satisfaction, affective commitment, and perceived corporate reputation. An online survey of employees working for firms ranked in Fortune's America's Most Admired Companies Index provides empirical evidence. The findings underline the prominent effect pride in membership has regarding employees' awareness of their impact on corporate reputation. Study findings further deliver insights into opportunities and risks for managers who wish to use internal reputation building strategies to enhance corporate reputation.     

The Acid Test of Corporate Identity Management™

This article introduces a new approach to corporate identity scholarship and practice entitled "The ACID Test of Corporate Identity Management."? The researchers undertook empirical research within a major corporate identity consultancy with the objective of evaluating and contrasting the techniques used by the consultancy with the latest developments in corporate identity scholarship. An analysis of the documentary material produced by the UK's top 20 corporate identity consultancies and of the conceptual models of corporate image/corporate identity produced by academics was undertaken. A qualitative research design was adopted, based on in-depth interviews, desk research and content analysis. The research revealed that most corporate identity projects adopted a "vision driven approach." In other words corporate identity strategies were being built around the corporate vision as articulated by an organisation's chief executive and/or board of management. Furthermore, visual identification was used as the primary vehicle to effect a change in the organisation's identity. The analysis of the documentary material of twenty corporate identity consultancies revealed that this vision driven approach was common across the industry. This finding is at variance with the latest developments in corporate identity research and scholarship which acknowledges that a variety of identity strategies are required in order to meet the various identity problems faced by organisations. It became clear that there was scope for a method which could help to (a) identify weaknesses with an organisation's identity strategy and management and (b) prioritise the type of identity change required in light of the current identity. The researchers found that the corporate identity interface concept introduced by Abratt (1989) and, which has been further developed by Stuart (1994) and Balmer (1998) could be used as the basis for a new approach to corporate identity consultancy, management and scholarship and this resulted in the creation of "The Acid Test of Corporate Identity Management". This new model affords one means by which senior managers, consultants and scholars might avoid some of the pitfalls which they can face when designing corporate identity change strategies. The article ends by discussing the implications of the ACID Test for corporate identity research, management and consultancy.     

The Relationship Between Supervisor Personality,Supervisors’ Perceived Stress and Workplace Bullying

This study investigated the relationship between supervisor personality and subordinate reports of exposure to bullying and harassment at work. Three research questions were examined: (a) Is there a direct relationship between supervisor personality and reports of workplace bullying? (b) Is there an interaction between supervisor personality and supervisors’ perceived stress as predictors of workplace bullying? (c) Will subordinates who experience bullying at their workplace rate their supervisor’s personality more negatively (negative halo effect)? The sample consisted of 207 supervisors and employees within 70 Norwegian restaurants. Supervisors low on conscientiousness, high on neuroticism and portraying high levels of exposure to stress were the subject of significantly more reports from subordinates of exposure to workplace bullying. An interaction between agreeableness and stress was found showing that agreeableness is related to bullying under low levels of stress. In addition, subordinates who perceived their supervisor as being low on agreeableness and high on introversion reported significantly more workplace bullying, supporting a negative halo effect hypothesis.     

Husband-wife report disagreement A cross-national investigation

In international marketing research, the reports of one family member are often used when investigating consumption-related characteristics, attitudes and behaviors of the entire family. Studies conducted primarily in the United States suggest that such usage may be subject to unknown biases due to substantial disagreement between spouses on key variable reports. However, little is known about husband-wife report disagreement cross-nationally. The present article provides empirical evidence on this issue through a study of husband-wife report disagreements in three countries - France, Libya and the United States. Based on empirical and socio-historical evidence, several propositions are suggested to facilitate future cross-national research on the nature and scope of husband-wife report disagreement.     

Perceptions of price (un)fairness in a channel context

This article extends prior research on perceptions of price (un)fairness by attempting to disentangle where in the marketing channel (un)fairness inferences lie. Extant research in this area overwhelmingly considers (un)fairness perceptions with respect to the pricing action only, ignoring attributions aimed at specific channel actors. This article illustrates differences in (un)fairness inferences with respect to retailers and manufacturers given price increases accompanied by decreased product supply, increased demand, or increased variable costs. We show that a retailer is considered relatively more unfair than a manufacturer given a price increase accompanied by a demand increase, as well as when no explicit reason is given for the price increase. Conversely, a manufacturer is considered relatively more unfair given a price increase accompanied by a supply decrease. Both channel entities are considered equally fair given a price increase accompanied by a channel (both retailer and manufacturer) or manufacturer cost increase, while a retailer is deemed relatively more unfair given a price increase accompanied by a retailer cost increase. This research generally suggests that inferences of causality for specific pricing actions may differentially skew toward upstream or downstream channel entities depending on the particular economic circumstances of the price change.     

Creating a Family or Loyalty-Based Framework: The Effects of Paternalistic Leadership on Workplace Bullying

Prior research has demonstrated that issues in leadership problems can lead to both negative organisational outcomes and unethical practices at work, such as bullying and counterproductive behaviours. This study investigates the association of bullying with paternalistic leadership dimensions (i.e. creating family atmosphere at work, maintaining individualised relationships, non-work involvement, loyalty seeking and maintaining authority). Seven hundred and fifteen questionnaires were collected from employees in Turkish workplaces. Confirmatory factor analyses were used to examine the bullying phenomenon and paternalistic leadership with respect to their dimensions. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that ??expecting loyalty in exchange for nurture at work?? relates positively with the experience of bullying. In contrast, findings indicated a negative association between leadership involving ??behaving like a senior family member at work?? and bullying. Plausible explanations of the findings were discussed by referring to relevant ethical climate literature.     

Cultural Values,Economic Growth and Development

This empirical study investigates the effects of nine ethical climate types (self-interest, company profit, efficiency, friendship, team interest, social responsibility, personal morality, company rules and procedures, and lastly laws and professional codes) on employee work satisfaction. The ethical climate typology developed by Victor and Cullen (in W. C. Frederick (ed.) Research in Corporate Social Performance and Policy, 1987; Administrative Science Quarterly 33, 101–125, 1988) is tested on a sample of staff and managers from 62 different telecommunication firms in Turkey. The results obtained from the 1174 usable questionnaires confirm the existence of nine different ethical climate types observed in western cultures in the present sample context, which is a developing Muslim country. Regarding the effects of ethical climatic factors on employee work satisfaction, self-interest climate type appears to negatively influence work satisfaction, whereas team interest, social responsibility and law and professional codes climate types are found to have positive impacts. Managerial and further research implications of the findings are discussed.     

Trade and labour standards: theory and new empirical evidence

Recent trade negotiations, both at the regional and multilateral level, have seen a resurgence of the issue of trade and labour standards. Labour interests in high-standards countries argue that low labour standards are an unfair source of comparative advantage, and that increasing imports from low-standards countries will have an adverse impact on wages and working conditions in high-standards countries, thus leading to a race to the bottom of standards. For low-standards countries, there is the fear that this is just a form of disguised protectionism and that the imposition of high labour standards upon them is equally unfair since it will erode their competitiveness, the latter being largely based on labour costs. Our objective in the present paper is to cast some light on the above debate from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. In particular, we first discuss some possible theoretical links between labour standards and comparative advantage through their effects on the terms of trade. We then investigate empirically the relationship between labour standards, comparative advantage and export performance. Overall, our empirical results suggest that caution should be exercised before drawing broad conclusions on the magnitude and direction of these effects.     

The Worth of Values – A Literature Review on the Relation Between Corporate Social and Financial Performance

One of the older questions in the debate about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is whether it is worthwhile for organizations to pay attention to societal demands. This debate was emotionally, normatively, and ideologically loaded. Up to the present, this question has been an important trigger for empirical research in CSR. However, the answer to the question has apparently not been found yet, at least that is what many researchers state. This apparent ambivalence in CSR consequences invites a literature study that can clarify the debate and allow for the drawing of conclusions. The results of the literature study performed here reveal that there is indeed clear empirical evidence for a positive correlation between corporate social and financial performance. Voices that state the opposite refer to out-dated material. Since the beginnings of the CSR debate, societies have changed. We can therefore clearly state that, for the present Western society, “Good Ethics is Good Business.”