PhD defence X. (Xiaocheng) Ma

Below is a brief summary about the dissertation:

Grounded in a person-situation perspective, in this dissertation we investigated the potentially favorable and unfavorable effects of employees’ dark triad traits in organizations, namely, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. To this end, the effects of the dark triad traits were examined in Chinese culture, which until now has been underrepresented in research. Several situational factors that may shape how high dark triad employees behave, perceive and perform in organizations were looked into. We found that national-level situational cues (US [individualism] vs. China [collectivism]), team-level situational cues (i.e., high agency-low communion leadership style and interpersonal conflict) and task-level situational cues (i.e., role ambiguity and low job autonomy) were found to shape high dark triad employees’ work outcomes (particularly for Machiavellianism). These outcomes include various work performance, behaviors, and attitudes, such as work engagement, counterproductive work behavior, in-role and extra-role performance, amoral manipulation, and influence tactics. Mostly, these situational cues affected the outcomes unfavorably: For example, role ambiguity activated high Machiavellian employees’ manipulative behaviors at work, which resulted in impaired work performance. Furthermore, this dissertation advanced current dark triad research by adopting an agency-communion framework to study interpersonal compatibility and interpersonal interactions for employees high in dark triad traits, by distinguishing between traits and states of dark triad personality and looking into the enactment of dark triad states in organizations, and by using a longitudinal study design to investigate high dark triad employees’ behavioral patterns over time. Overall, the findings imply that the effects of dark triad traits in organizations largely depend on the potential influences of cultural, organizational, team, and task factors.