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Stress and the military go hand-in-hand, particularly in combat environments. While some personality traits or types weaken relationships between stress and performance, others, such as psychopathy, may strengthen them. In the present chapter, we consider the ramifications of individuals with high levels of psychopathy or psychopathic tendencies in the military with regard to both their own stress and performance and that of those around them. We discuss different reactions to psychological and physical stress, as well as the implications of psychopathic tendencies as they relate to current military issues, including gender, leadership, teamwork, turnover, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicide. By juxtaposing relevant research findings on stress and psychopathy, we conclude that psychopathic tendencies should have neither uniformly negative nor positive effects on stress and performance in the military. Rather, effects on such individuals and the peripheral others with whom they interact will likely vary greatly depending on numerous factors.

We investigate the relationship among the Dark Triad personality traits, ethical fading, and unethical behavior. Our findings suggest that Machiavellianism and psychopathy have a significant relationship with ethical fading such that individuals with high Machiavellianism are more likely to exhibit ethical fading, and individuals with high psychopathy are less likely to exhibit ethical fading. We do not find a significant association between narcissism and ethical fading. In the supplemental analyses, we investigate whether ethical fading leads to more unethical behavior (i.e., fraudulent reporting) and if it mediates the effect of Machiavellianism and psychopathy on unethical behavior. Our findings suggest that, while all the dark traits have a direct effect on unethical behavior, only Machiavellianism has an indirect effect that flows through ethical fading.

Machiavellian, narcissistic, and psychopathic traits are often viewed as negative or undesirable personality traits. However, recent research demonstrates that individuals with these traits possess qualities that may be personally beneficial within the business contexts. In this chapter, we conceptualize a balanced perspective of these traits throughout the entrepreneurial process (opportunity recognition, opportunity evaluation, and opportunity exploitation) and discuss human resources management strategies that can be employed to enhance the benefits, or minimize the challenges, associated with Machiavellian, narcissistic, and psychopathic traits. Specifically, we propose that Machiavellian qualities are most beneficial in the evaluation stage of entrepreneurship, and Machiavellian, narcissistic, and psychopathic qualities are beneficial in the exploitation stage of entrepreneurship.

The study of corporate psychopaths has gone from something which some academic peers found somewhat incredible, and even laughable, in 2005, to an area where an increasing amount of research is taking place across many disciplines. The paradigmatic view in 2005 was that psychopaths were criminal and, therefore, to be found in prisons and not in ‘respectable’ corporations. That chapters like this on corporate psychopaths and destructive leadership are now invited in 2020 for inclusion in academic management books that illustrates how relatively quickly the idea that psychopaths are found in corporations has gained acceptance. Nonetheless, destructive, unethical and psychopathic leadership is, by and large, still unexpected in the workplace, and this magnifies its impact as employees struggle to know how to deal with it. Such destructive leadership is also jarring and quite often traumatic for the employees concerned as well as being damaging to the organisations involved. This chapter examines psychopathic leadership and outlines its importance. This subject has been covered before in books and other chapters which describe psychopaths as organisational destroyers and producers of a climate of fear. Therefore, an aim of this chapter is to present some of the most up-to-date findings on corporate psychopaths and how they influence their environment via abusive supervision involving discrimination, ridicule and lowered job satisfaction. Abusiveness and unfairness lead to employees experiencing workplace stress and reduced mental health. The implications of corporate psychopathy for corporate legal responsibility are only just being considered as lawyers, ethicists and philosophers engage with this difficult subject.

Crowdfunding campaigns reflect the personality traits of the entrepreneur, influencing the chances of a successful fundraising. In this study, the authors focus on three different entrepreneurs’ personality dark traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. Through a text analysis of 338 equity-crowdfunding campaigns in the UK, the authors identified narcissistic expressions used by entrepreneurs in their pitches, and their impact on funding success. The authors found an inverted U-shape relationship between entrepreneurs’ narcissism and the crowdfunding success. On the other hand, entrepreneurs’ psychopathy has a negative linear relationship with crowdfunding success. This study contributes to the entrepreneurship literature, highlighting the importance of displayed entrepreneurs’ personality traits in engaging with crowd investors.

This chapter documents how the shift in psychiatric representation from the “morally insane” perpetrator of the 19th century to the modern psychopath or person with anti-social personality disorder involves a recasting of the offender from someone afflicted with an illness whose criminal misconduct is merely a symptom of their disorder to someone whose criminal misconduct is perceived as an expression of their true character. Drawing upon recent case law, the article then shows how prosecutors deploy this modern psychiatric reconfiguring during the penalty phase of the US capital trial to persuade jurors to decide in favor of death over life without parole. Central to the building of this narrative is the reframing of the offenders’ silences as well as what are taken as their unconvincing attempts to show remorse as evidence of a pathology whose primary manifestation is the incapacity to feel or experience moral emotions. Applying but also modifying Harold Garfinkel's work on degradation ceremonies, the chapter shows how the pathologizing of the offender's lack of remorse involves a rite of passage in which he or she is symbolically demoted from someone worthy of life in spite of their grievous crime to someone for whom death is the only appropriate penalty.

Understanding whistleblowing behavior by identifying preferred reporting channels and associated personality characteristics can aid organizations in their attempts to encourage whistleblowing. The authors investigate whether both Dark Triad characteristics and gender affect whistleblowing intentions and whistleblowing channel preferences. Using a sample of undergraduate business students, the authors find individuals with higher levels of Dark Triad personality characteristics indicate that they are less likely to blow the whistle than individuals with lower levels of Dark Triad personality characteristics. They are also more likely to use non-anonymous channels over anonymous channels and individuals with lower levels of Dark Triad personality characteristics show the opposite channel preference. The authors also find women more likely to report, and when reporting, they prefer anonymous over non-anonymous channels. The results provide support for organizations in cultivating an organizational culture that promotes communication among employees and potentially includes incentives to promote whistleblowing.

The role of dark side personality characteristics in the workplace has received increasing attention in the organizational sciences and from leadership researchers in particular. We provide a review of this area, mapping out the key frameworks for assessing the dark side. We pay particular attention to the roles that the dark side plays in leadership processes and career dynamics, with special attention given to destructive leadership. Further, we examine the role that stress plays in the emergence of leaders and how the dark side plays into that process. We additionally provide discussion of the possible roles that leaders can play in producing stress experiences for their followers. We finally illustrate a dynamic model of the interplay of dark leadership, social relationships, and stress in managerial derailment. Throughout, we emphasize a functionalist account of these personality characteristics, placing particular focus on the motives and emotional capabilities of the individuals under discussion.