Abuse

'Peer Mistreatment on Employee Performance' by Yuntao Bai, Lili Lu and Li Lin-Schilstra in (2022) 178(3) Journal of Business Ethics comments 

An accumulating amount of research has documented the harmful effects of abusive supervision on either its victims or third parties (peer abusive supervision). The abusive supervision literature, however, neglects to investigate the spillover effects of abusive supervision through third-party employees’ (i.e., peers’) mistreatment actions toward victims. Drawing on social learning theory, we argue that third parties learn mistreatment behaviors from abusive leaders and then themselves impose peer harassment and peer ostracism on victims, thereby negatively affecting victims’ performance. Further, we posit that, if a victim has a proactive personality, this will weaken these indirect, negative effects. We conducted two studies, both with three-wave longitudinal data, to verify the hypotheses. The results of Study 1 evidence the significant indirect effects of abusive supervision on employee creative performance via both peer harassment and peer ostracism. Contrary to our moderation hypothesis, the analysis shows that victims’ proactive personality strengthens rather than weakens the negative indirect effects of peer harassment. Study 2 generally replicated the results of Study 1 with employee’s objective job performance as outcome. Our research contributes to the abusive supervision literature by highlighting a social learning process of third-party peer mistreatment, suggesting a spillover channel of abusive supervision on the victim’s performance

Darkness

'The dark authoritarians: Profiling the personality, emotional style, and authoritarian attitudes of the major American parties' by Ryan Bird, Hayden Hickey Mackenzie, Joel Leavitt and Jennifer L Robinson in (2022) 186(B) Personality and Individual Differences 111298 comments 

Many are concerned that authoritarianism is increasing across the political spectrum. In the current study, we investigated the extent to which dark personality variables (i.e., psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellianism) predict both right- and left-wing authoritarianism (RWA and LWA) between Republicans and Democrats. We developed profiles of individuals' political and personality characteristics concomitant with endorsement of authoritarianism. Our findings (n = 527) suggest a complex interaction between dark traits and political views. Using latent profile analysis, we uncovered underlying profiles characterizing distinct groups of individuals across party identification, LWA, RWA, and dark traits. Four latent profiles emerged: (1) a typical Democrat, low in dark traits and higher in LWA; (2) a typical Republican, low in dark traits and higher in RWA; (3) a dark Democrat, high in dark traits and high in both RWA and LWA; (4) a dark Republican, high in dark traits and high in both RWA and LWA. Together, these data suggest that authoritarianism manifests differentially across the political spectrum and is influenced by emotional style.

Corporate Pathologies

'Corporate Law and Corporate Psychopaths' by Benedict Sheehy, Clive Boddy and Brendon Murphy in (2020) Psychiatry, Psychology and Law comments 

For more than three decades there has been a growing interest, and concern, in the role that psychopathy plays in corporate affairs. The literature in this field is essentially interdisciplinary, drawing heavily on advances in neuroscience, behavioural and organisational psychology and criminology. In this paper that authors open a line of enquiry on the role that law can play in the regulation, and remedies, available to deal with dysfunctional and psychopathic management. In this paper we argue that the impact of corporate psychopaths – particularly the sub-clinical types – is sometimes potentially devastating for the organisation, its mission, its employees and, where they exist, shareholders. In this article we outline the nature of corporate psychopathy, its impact on corporate entities, and outline a range of potential legal remedies.

Snakes in suits

'Maskers of the Universe: Generating Transparency Around Antisocial Personality Traits of Executive Leaders in Corporate America' by Nicolette J. Zulli  comments

One out of every five chief executives is a psychopath who is consumed with playing a game of corporate accomplishment, as he takes inhumane pleasure in violating moral code to ensure his dominance and personal gain over others in the workplace. In fact, there are a growing number of “triadic persons” in the American workforce, who combine three types of antisocial personalities: narcissism, sociopathy, and psychopathy. These individuals are drawn to positions of power and prestige, making corporate America the ideal breeding ground for producing the number one most psychopathic profession: The Corporate CEO. These actors are intrinsic experts at performing a routine of tantalizing charm and believable devotion. Meanwhile, with the absence of an effective mechanism designed to highlight the antisocial tendencies of C-Level leaders in current hiring and promotion processes of publicly-traded companies, these corporations, their employees, and shareholders remain unable to expose the bad actors who are stealthily permeating the fabric of U.S. commercial markets. In order to generate the transparency necessary to afford employers, stockholders, boards of directors, and regulators the opportunity to make informed decisions about America’s corporate leaders, this Note proposes the SEC’s promulgation of an optional Corporate Character and Fitness (“CCF”) Disclosure tool, designed to unmask the antisocial personality traits of executive leaders employed by publicly-traded companies, in order to better gauge their risk propensity.

'Advertising Morality: Maintaining Moral Worth in a Stigmatized Profession' by Andrew C. Cohen and Shai M. Dromi comments 

Although a great deal of literature has looked at how individuals respond to stigma, far less has been written about how professional groups address challenges to their self-perception as abiding by clear. In this paper, we ask how professional group members maintain a positive self-perception in face of moral stigma.Drawing on pragmatic and cultural sociology, we claim that professional communities hold narratives that link various aspects of the work their members perform with specific understanding of the common good. These narratives allow professionals to maintain a shared view of their work as benefitting society and to perceive themselves as moral individuals. As a case study, we focus on the advertising industry, which has long been stigmatized as complicit in exploitative capitalist mechanisms and cultural degradation. We draw on 9 total months of fieldwork and 74 interviews across three U.S.advertising agencies. We find that advertising practitioners use narratives to present their work as contributing to the common good, depicting themselves as moral individuals who care about others in the process. We analyze three prevalent narratives: the account-driven narrative, which links moral virtue to caring for clients; the creative-driven narrative, which ties caring to the production of meaningful advertisements; and the strategic-driven narrative, which sees caring in finding meaningful relationships for consumers and brands.