Corporate Psychopaths, Bullying, Conflict and Unfair Supervision in the Workplace

This chapter reports on the empirical research for this book that establishes strong, positive and significant correlations between the presence of Corporate Psychopaths and the ethical issues of bullying, conflict and unfair supervision in the workplace. The measure for bullying is the witnessing of the unfavourable treatment of others at work. Three other measures of conflict are also used: the frequencies of arguments, rudeness and yelling. Unfair supervision was measured by perceptions that an employee’s supervisor was unfair and showed little interest in the feelings of subordinates. The chapter discusses the theoretical links between psychopathy, conflict and bullying and notes that little empirical evidence has been gathered on the connection in management research. The findings of the research are then presented and discussed. They show that when Corporate Psychopaths are present in a work environment, the level of bullying is significantly greater than when they are not. Further, when Corporate Psychopaths are present, supervisors are strongly perceived as being unfair to employees and uninterested in their feelings. The chapter concludes that around 26 per cent of bullying is accounted for by 1 per cent of the employee population – those who are Corporate Psychopaths.