Corporate psychopaths in Australian workplaces : their influence on organisational outcomes

This thesis describes the construct of psychopathy and the study of psychopaths. It identifies that psychopaths have been studied extensively in their criminal manifestations but that there is a large and recognised gap in the literature and a stated need for the study of successful psychopaths and Corporate Psychopaths. The thesis outlines the research instrument used to identify such people in a 2008 survey of management behaviour among 346 managers in Australia. The robust statistical validity and reliability of the instrument is described, and the high level of face validity of the resultant findings is noted. The research defined Corporate Psychopaths as psychopaths who work in corporations. Operationally, Corporate Psychopaths were defined as those managers who scored above 12 on a psychopathy measure of their behaviour. It investigated outcomes in terms of the influence of the presence of Corporate Psychopaths on organisational constraints, withdrawal from the workplace, workplace conflict and bullying, workload, levels of job satisfaction and perceived levels of corporate social responsibility.