Abstrakt: | The book constitutes the first Polish monograph concerning the issues of
coexistence with people with “dark” personality traits in the workplace. The
present monograph considers three types of socially harmful personality
traits which form the so-called dark triad: Machiavellianism, narcissism and
psychopathy. The “dark” personality traits constitute the core of the inquiry
and they are analyzed with regard to the attitudes towards work (i.e. job
satisfaction and brand loyalty), civic and counter-productive activities in the
workplace, as well as (according to the interactive approach) selected characteristics
of the workplace.
The monograph consists of four chapters. Chapter one presents the two
basic approaches to describing personality in the workplace: the trait approach
and the interactive approach. In the beginning, the chapter underscores the
importance of distinguishing between the “light” and “dark” personality
traits in the workplace. Next, the chapter discusses the most important conceptions
within the interactive approach to the study of personality in the
organizational context, including the theory of personality trait activation in
the workplace.
Chapter two introduces the taxonomy of the dark triad, which includes
three discrete “dark” personality traits, analyzed at the sub-clinical level:
Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. It presents two approaches to
the study of the dark triad: the unification approach and the discrimination
approach, and situates the dark triad against the other personality models, in
addition to enumerating the most important behavioral correlations between
Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. Moreover, it discusses the
issue of the functioning of people who possess some of the traits of the dark
triad in the workplace, underlining the significance of the potential benefits
and costs connected with the presence of people who exhibit high levels of
Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy in the business.
Chapter three discusses two attitudes towards work, analyzed in the monograph
in relation to the traits exhibited by the dark triad: job satisfaction and brand loyalty. The chapter defines both concepts, presents the main categories
of their personality and situational conditions, and examines the character of
the links between the traits of the dark triad and the aforementioned attitudes
towards work.
Chapter four focuses on the analysis of two distinctive categories of
voluntary actions in the workplace, i.e. civic actions and counter-productive
actions. It indicates the main problems with terminology connected with the
description of the aforementioned organizational actions and differentiates
between three categories of conditions for organizational actions: attitudes
towards work, situational factors, personality factors. The chapter is based on
earlier research which focuses on the analysis of the interdependence between
the personality traits of the dark triad and civic as well as counter-productive
actions in the workplace.
The three following chapters form the empirical part of the monograph. The
first chapter discusses the methodological basis of own research; the second
chapter analyzes the results of the study, and the third chapter presents their
interpretation. The conducted study has confirmed the majority of the hypotheses
considering the direct links between the personality traits of the dark
triad, attitudes towards work and organizational actions. It has been shown
that two conditions (power within the organization, understood as a formal
position at the firm, and interpersonal conflict in the workplace) fulfilled the
role of the moderators in the relation between the traits of the dark triad and
attitudes towards work and organizational actions. Singular mediational effects
of the attitudes towards work with regard to the links between the traits
of the dark triad and organizational actions have also been observed. Taking
into account the results of the study, modifications to the research model have
been proposed, in order to include the direct correlations between situational
factors and attitudes towards work and organizational actions. At the end
of the monograph, on the basis of the literature on the subject, the author
attempted interpretation of the obtained results, pointing to the limitations
of the conducted studies and possible future avenues for empirical research. |