Narcissistic Enough to Challenge: The Effect of Narcissism on Change-Oriented Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations need to effectively manage changes, and employees need to proactively adapt to these changes. The present research investigated when and how individual employees’ narcissism was related to their change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior. Specifically, based on a trait activation perspective, this research proposed the hypotheses that individual employees’ narcissism and environmental uncertainty would interactively influence employees’ change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior via felt responsibility for constructive change; furthermore, the effect of narcissism on change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior via felt responsibility for constructive change would be stronger when the environmental uncertainty prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic was high rather than low. Two studies were conducted to test these hypotheses: an online survey of 180 employees in mainland China (Study 1) and a field study of 167 leader–follower dyads at two Chinese companies (Study 2). The current research reveals a bright side of narcissism, which has typically been recognized as a dark personality trait, and enriches the understanding of the antecedents of change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior. This research can also guide organizations that wish to stimulate employee proactivity.

Unravelling the Relationship between Dark Triad Traits and Effectuation and Causation within Small‐ and Medium‐sized Enterprises

“…Bouncken et al, 2020;Palmer, Homes and Perrewe, 2020). Meanwhile, TAT (Tett and Burnett, 2003) has been used to explain the interactive effect between narcissism and uncertainty on individual behaviour (Lang et al, 2021); scholars have in particular explored various triggers for certain behaviours of CEOs and managers scoring high on psychopathy (Blickle et al, 2018) and Machiavellianism (Rehman and Shahnawaz, 2018).…”

Workplace suspicion, knowledge hiding, and silence behavior: A double-moderated mediation model of knowledge-based psychological ownership and face consciousness

“…In today’s era of increasingly complex business and fierce competition environment ( Roscoe et al, 2020 ; Lang et al, 2022 ), as the basic elements of the company, employees play an exceedingly critical role in the discovery, opinions, and suggestions of issues ( Ng and Feldman, 2012 ; Liu et al, 2020 ; Song et al, 2021 ). However, a large number of employees are reluctant to speak up and choose to remain silent ( Milliken et al, 2003 ; Prouska and Psychogios, 2018 ).…”

Does Organizational Narcissism Affect Organizational Citizenship? An Empirical Study on Teachers

“…OCB is a voluntary and optional extra role behavior that contributes to organizational effectiveness and performance (Williams and Anderson, 1991). Previous studies have examined the effects of leader narcissism on employees' OCB (Wang, Liu, Wang and Dong, 2021), the effects of employee narcissism on change-oriented OCB (Lang, Zhang, Liu and Zhang, 2022) and the moderating role of narcissism in the relationship between trust and citizenship behavior (Yıldız and Öncer, 2012). However, there is no research on how organizational narcissism affects OCB, according to teachers' perceptions.…”