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This study empirically and theoretically aims to explore the consequences of top management’s dark personality traits (DPT) on organizational injustice, e.g. organizational procedural justice (OPJ), organizational interactional justice (OIJ) and organizational distributive justice (ODJ) and counterproductive work behavior (CWB).

A study was conducted to examine the influence of DPT on CWB among the contractual employees of the land revenue department, Pakistan. The quantitative method was employed using a convenient sampling approach. A designed survey questionnaire was distributed among 1,240 land revenue officials in 13 districts of Pakistan.

The results supported that dark DPT directly, significantly and positively affects CWB. In addition, DPT, except for psychopathy (PSY), significantly and negatively affects OPJ, OIJ and ODJ. Meanwhile, OIJ and OPJ strengthen the negative relationship between CWB and Machiavellianism and narcissism (NAR); however, PSY failed directly to affect OPJ, OIP and ODJ indirectly failed to capture CWB.

Top management/government should pay attention to fair dealings among the contractual employees. Consequently, they would prefer to do well in the workplace. Particularly, top management should avoid practicing DPT, which has ultimate results in CWB.

Public managers should avoid DPT because they are not compatible with public needs. Managers with DPT negatively affect their employees' productivity behaviors. Therefore, managers should focus on positive personality traits to enhance employees' productivity via organizational justice.

This study is unique in the land revenue department of Pakistan, where unfair dealings are being practiced among contractual employees. Surprisingly, CWB is the ultimate consequence of both DPT and top management's dishonest dealings (e.g. organizational injustices).

Whilst several studies investigate the attributes of dysfunctional leaders exhibiting corporate psychopathic traits, there is a paucity of longitudinal data exploring the way these leaders damage employees and the organisation. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap in the literature and provide a focus for HR to address these emerging issues within organisations.

A longitudinal and in-depth case study approach is taken to explore the impact on a workplace of a dysfunctional leader exhibiting the traits of a corporate psychopath. A framework is used to analyse the nuances of the behaviours, in particular bullying behaviours and the impact of this leadership style on the workforce over a five-year period.

The long-term negative effects of this type of leadership are identified through a detailed analysis of a trait commonly associated with this toxic style of leader, bullying behaviours and their consequences.

Whilst a single case study allows for in-depth analysis, it may be seen as atypical and of limited application. However, the longitudinal approach is ideal to investigate the nuance of how a highly dysfunctional leader operates within and through the multiple layers of an organisation.

The paper identifies the traits and effects of a dysfunctional leader on an organisation to enable the organisation primarily through human resources to deal with them and their behaviours.

The finding of this study adds to the knowledge of identifying and dealing with toxic behaviours in the workplace.

The longitudinal nature of the study provides a unique insight into the behaviours and damage of a dysfunctional leader within the workplace.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between leader psychopathy and organizational deviance. In particular, the authors introduce employee’s psychological safety as the mediator. Furthermore, the moderating role of moral disengagement in the relationship between leader psychopathy and organizational deviance is also considered.

The data of this study include 611 certified nurses from 9 university hospitals in Turkey. The proposed model was tested by using hierarchical multiple regression analysis.

The results of this study supported the positive effect of leader psychopathy on organizational deviance along with the mediating effect of employee’s psychological safety. Furthermore, when the level of moral disengagement is low, the relationship between leader psychopathy and organizational deviance is weak, whereas the effect is strong when the level of moral disengagement is high.

The findings of the study recommend that administrators in the healthcare industry ought to be sensitive in treating their subordinates, since it will result in positive organizational relationship, which, subsequently, will certainly reduce organizational deviance. Furthermore, they have to pay more focus on the buffering role of moral disengagement for all those subordinates with high distrust and displaying organizational deviance.

This paper contributes to the literature about workplace deviance by uncovering the relational mechanism between leader psychopathy and employee organizational deviance. Furthermore, it includes practical assistance to healthcare employees and their leaders interested in building trust, increasing leader–employee relationship and reducing organizational deviance.

Increasingly, it is recognized that (larger) organizations have many employees who present with corporate psychopathy (i.e. a milder version of antisocial personality disorder (APD)). Importantly, such a disorder contributes to the presence of deviant workplace behaviour. Organizations must therefore adapt its practices to both identify and manage employees who either present with, or have tendencies towards, corporate psychopathy. As a means of developing a guiding framework for organizational adaptation, the purpose of this two-part paper is to offer two reviews of relevant research. The first revolves around the body of knowledge regarding corporate psychopathy and the primary, established behavioural method of identifying its presence; the second is a brief review on physiological measures that can complement current gold standards.

A range of published empirical and practitioner research articles were reviewed to elaborate on APD and corporate psychopathy; showcase the efficacy of the currently most accepted method of detecting psychopathic behaviour – the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL) and; highlight physiological methods of detecting psychopathic tendencies which may complement usage of the PCL – electroencephalography, measurement of galvanic skin responses, and electromyography.

Deviant workplace behaviours cause losses of billions of dollars across all business organizations, and much of this behaviour stems from corporate psychopaths in positions of leadership; the PCL, while useful, can nonetheless yield sharp differences in the identification of psychopathy across different administrators of the test; measures of physiological states show good reliability in discriminating psychopathic persons from non-psychopathic persons. Based on these findings, the authors propose guidelines for how to identify and mitigate the effects of corporate psychopathy for organizations.

The proposed guidelines must be tested in an empirical paper to measure their effectiveness.

The paper suggests an overall framework that may help leaders and organizational development practitioners identify the major factors which may be considered to safeguard against the potentially detrimental conduct of corporate psychopaths in their organizations.

This paper highlights the need to identify and ward against the presence of corporate psychopaths. There needs to be guidelines for organizations on how to identify and mitigate the effects of corporate psychopathy for organizations.

The suggestion of integrating physiological methods of detection with the PCL, as well as urging proactive education of all employees as the symptoms and effects of corporate psychopathy, is the novel contribution of the paper.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between dark triad personality (DTP) and organizational and individual counterproductive work behaviors (CWB) and perceived career success among employees in Turkey. Additionally, the study examined the effects of four situational variables: perceived organizational politics, transparency, psychological contract breach, and accountability.

Data were collected from 156 employees across five service organizations in Sakarya, Turkey, using the survey method.

The regression analysis findings showed that the three traits of the DTP, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy were significantly related to both organizational and interpersonal dimensions of the CWB. Narcissism was not related to any of the dimensions of CWB. The findings showed no significant relationship between any of the four situational variables and the two forms of CWB. However, three of the situational variables were related to perceived career success, while the three dimensions of DTP were not.

The main limitations of this study are its cross-sectional design and the self-reported measures of the dependent variables. Interestingly, the study showed that having high levels of DTP does not necessarily promote their careers.

This study contributes to examining career success as a dependent variable in addition to CWB. The findings showed that situational variables are related to career success, and DTP is related to CWB. This finding has both conceptual and practical implications.

The purpose of this paper is to better comprehend the subclinical psychopath's intra and interpersonal moral emotions in the context of their natural habitat, the workplace, alongside implications for employees and organisations.

This study draws on affective events theory (AET) to illuminate this dark-side phenomenon. Thematic analysis is used to identify themes from qualitative data collected from a small sample of interviews conducted with human resource management (HRM) directors and other managers.

The findings show that the subclinical psychopath is agentic, being unfettered by intra self-directed conscious moral emotions. The predominant moral emotion directed at employees during interpersonal workplace exchanges is typically anger. However, it appears likely the subclinical psychopath fakes this moral emotion as a smokescreen for manipulative and exploitative gains. The predominant moral emotion directed by employees towards the subclinical psychopath is fear. Employees resort to avoidance and withdrawal behaviour and intentions to quit become a reality.

The signalling quality of employees' moral emotions and subsequent dysfunctional avoidance and withdrawal behaviour can provide valuable information to HRM professionals in the detection of subclinical psychopaths which is acknowledged as notoriously difficult.

This study contributes new knowledge to subclinical psychopathy and makes novel use of AET to explore this personality type as a driver of employees' negative workplace emotions, the impact on employees' behaviour alongside implications for organisational effectiveness.

This paper aims to explore how and why the emerging literature in clinical psychology on the “successful psychopath” precedes the escalating middle class framing of the contemporary corporation as a monster and points towards an increasingly credible version of systemic psychopathy.

Discourse analysis is used to isolate three distinct but interrelated argument forms in which the basic assertion is that “the corporation is a psychopath”. All three argument forms insist that the corporation lacks a conscience and point to a toxic schism on the boundary between the organization and its stakeholders or publics.

In Argument Form I, successful psychopaths enter and rise to prominence in the flexible, hypercompetitive context of the contemporary corporation. Once ensconced within the corporation, in Argument Form II, the psychopath creates the conditions for a scam which, when detected, gives rise to a flurry of breathless and very public corporate scandals. Argument Form III follows from II. In it the rogues and scoundrels – those increasingly caught in the high beams of a corporate scandal – once in positions of power and authority seek out allies, stifle those who would oppose them and begin to legitimize their scams as “business as usual.” Systemic psychopathy emerges when the appeal to “business as usual” conceals scams and supports conscienceless behavior.

This paper explains why increasingly, members of the middle class, those who in the past stood behind the corporation, are less than shocked to hear it characterized as a psychopath. The paper concludes with the implications of the intensifying portrayal of the dark side of the corporation for researchers studying the changing relationship between society and business.

The purpose of this paper is to adapt research conducted on subclinical psychopaths and Machiavellians to conceptualise false agents in transaction cost economics (TCE). Both opportunism and information asymmetry provide a means to manipulate contractual relationships, pursuing existing loopholes for self-interest, while uncertainty and small-numbers bargaining allow false agents to exploit existing agreements during periods of rapid change, growth, and development. Considering differences in contract length preference may inform our understanding of subclinical psychopaths and Machiavellians. Contextually, the rise of “quasi-governmental” hybrid organisations may produce an ideal prospect for “natural born” opportunists to reap self-interested benefits through contractual loopholes.

This theoretical paper addresses social norms and blind trust in contractual relationships. In turn, blind trust may provide clues about the environmental conditions that facilitate manipulation by subclinical psychopaths and Machiavellians during negotiations of contract term length.

Williamson’s (1975) TCE framework provides a novel approach to subclinical psychopathic and Machiavellian behaviour by agents. Assumptions about behavioural norms may differ between the contracting party and the agent, leading to positive behavioural expectations of trust such as confidence, reciprocity, and history. The length of the contractual relationship may distinguish subclinical psychopaths from Machiavellians. The subclinical psychopath is more likely to behave opportunistically in short-term contracts, while Machiavellians more likely amass goodwill to behave opportunistically in long-term contracts. The role of uncertainty, small-numbers bargaining, information asymmetry, and opportunism is particularly relevant in quasi-governmental organisations when agents are “natural born” opportunists.

This theoretical paper adds to discussion of TCE related problems in organisations. “Natural born” opportunistic agents are more likely to take advantage of principals who extend trust as a goodwill gesture in a contractual relationship. Trust often represents a mental shortcut, based on “gut” reactions to save time, especially in dynamic environments. Hybrid organisations represent one such environment, in which contracting of goods and services renders comprehensive monitoring impracticable. Yet, scholarship adheres to legal mechanisms as safeguards against opportunism without acknowledging social norms that guide blind trust. Finally, contrasting motives between principals and false agents creates an inherent relationship asymmetry.