Narcissism, toxic work culture and abusive supervision: a double-edged sword escalating organizational deviance

Abstract

Purpose

In a nutshell, the purpose of this paper is to accentuate the mask of evils of the organization by discussing different experiences, stories and cases, which is on itself a bizarre because we always talk about the morality and ethos in leading styles.

Design/methodology/approach

The study is conducted in India and descriptive in nature. The structural equation modelling technique is used in the paper to test the relationships among the constructs directly and indirectly by mediation effect on how it raises the organizational deviance.

Findings

The outcome of the study indicates that organizational deviance is highly influenced by narcissism, which also raises the toxic work culture and abusive supervision. The mentioned variables not only have a significant effect but also have a partial mediation effect on organizational deviance. The study significantly contributes to the literature with the findings that not only narcissism led to organizational deviance but additionally leads to high arousal through a positive relationship with toxic work culture and abusive supervision strongly leading to organizational deviance.

Research limitations/implications

The study is for leaders who are more with self-love, demolishing peace and promoting the toxic work culture and deviant behaviours.

Practical implications

Having narcissistic traits then turns into a complicated situation for employees to decide whether to stay in the organization or leave, and if these intentions are not developing, then it led to deviance on the part of employees.

Social implications

A leader becomes so much obsessed with their egomania and uses the abusive supervision to dominate the team members. This pattern has to stop, as it fabricating the wrong connotation of the tranquillity of followers or team members.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the outcome where leaders could understand the impact of how their excess self-love turns against the workplace peace and results in high deviance.

Citation

Tiwari, M. and Jha, R. (2022), "Narcissism, toxic work culture and abusive supervision: a double-edged sword escalating organizational deviance", International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 99-114. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-05-2020-2187