The perks of narcissism: Behaving like a star speeds up career advancement to the CEO position

Rovelli, Paola; Curnis, Camilla

doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2020.101489

Cited by 34 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 151 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…We claim that time to the top is not necessarily equal to reaching the CEO position, but it is equal to reaching a management board position. With this approach, we extend previous studies focusing on the time it takes to become CEO (e.g., Blanco & Sastre Castillo, 2020;Georgakakis et al, 2016;Hamori & Kakarika, 2009;Rovelli & Curnis, 2020;Salvato et al, 2012). By considering the number of industries, employers, functions and countries, we offer a comprehensive perspective on career variety as a predictor of the time it takes to reach the top.…”

Section: Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 63%

Top managers' career variety and time to the top

Schmid

Mitterreiter

2021

European Management Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The present paper brings novel insights to career literature, in particular to the field of top managers' careers: first, by relying on the boundaryless career approach, we investigate how those managers who reach the top differ in terms of career variety before being appointed to the board. Second, by combining the boundaryless career approach with human capital theory, we analyze the association between top managers' career variety and the time it takes them to reach a board level position. For our empirical study, we use a sample of top managers from German DAX‐30 firms. Our results reveal four distinct clusters of top managers, indicating that, before reaching the management board, no uniform career path exists. We also demonstrate that more career variety does not shorten an individual's way up to upper echelons; rather, it extends the time it takes to ascend to the top.

show abstract

Section: Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 63%

Top managers' career variety and time to the top

Schmid

Mitterreiter

2021

European Management Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The correlations between the both leadership variables and the dark triad measure are significantly negative. While this may be surprising given that the literature argues that dark personality traits may facilitate a rise to leadership positions in organizations (Babiak and Hare, 2006;Rovelli and Curnis, 2020), Hogan and Hogan (2001) observe that dark personality traits are typically noticed first by subordinates. At the same time, it may be possible that employees who are dissatisfied with their jobs may judge their supervisor as a poor leader and having a dark personality.…”

Section: Pearson's Correlation Matrixmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dark Triad Managerial Personality and Financial Reporting Manipulation

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…CEO narcissism, that is, “the degree to which an individual has an inflated sense of self and is preoccupied with having that self‐view continually reinforced” (Chatterjee & Hambrick, 2007, p. 353), is a personality trait particularly salient in the context of the two learning orientations. This is because CEO narcissism is a prevalent personality trait in leadership positions, as narcissistic individuals are likelier to be appointed and promoted to CEO positions (Asad & Sadler‐Smith, 2020; Rovelli & Curnis, 2021). Equally importantly, the underlying characteristics of narcissism, such as an inflated self‐view and attention‐seeking behavior, provide robust links with the uncertainty and potential high visibility of firm innovation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Narcissistic CEOs' dilemma: The trade‐off between exploration and exploitation and the moderating role of performance feedback

Steinberg

Asad

Lijzenga

2022

J of Product Innov Manag

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Prior research has established a positive link between chief executive officer (CEO) narcissism and firm innovation. Notably, research shows that CEO narcissism is positively related to more radical innovation and breakthrough technologies, that is, manifestations of a firm's exploration orientation, and positively related to more incremental innovation, that is, manifestations of firms' exploitation orientations. However, it primarily examines these orientations in isolation or neglects their interplay and thereby ignores insights from organizational learning theorists that firms and managers face decisive tradeoffs between fundamentally distinct exploration and exploitation orientations. This overlooks the possibility that narcissistic CEOs may emphasize exploration over exploitation, and vice versa, to gain visibility, affecting the balance between those orientations. Consequently, we might draw incorrect conclusions about how CEO narcissism affects firms' innovation. Drawing on theoretical mechanisms from the narcissistic personality literature, we develop and test a competing logic that connects CEO narcissism with firms' relative exploration orientation, that is, firms' exploration relative to the exploitation orientation. In addition, we theorize on and investigate the moderating effects of accounting-and market-based performance feedback that may alter narcissistic CEOs' attention to exploration or exploitation and, hence, affect the relationship with firms' relative exploration orientation. We test our hypotheses using panel data from 120 firms in the Standard and Poor's 100 index between 2008 and 2018, covering the personality profiles of 224 CEOs. Our findings indicate that CEO narcissism is negatively associated with firms' relative exploration orientation, that is, narcissistic CEOs emphasize an exploitation orientation. Furthermore, this relationship is pronounced with firms' increasing relative accounting-based performance and attenuated with firms' increasing relative market-based performance. We draw theoretical and managerial implications from these insights.

show abstract

The perks of narcissism: Behaving like a star speeds up career advancement to the CEO position

Cited by 34 publications

References 151 publications

Top managers' career variety and time to the top

Top managers' career variety and time to the top

Dark Triad Managerial Personality and Financial Reporting Manipulation

Narcissistic CEOs' dilemma: The trade‐off between exploration and exploitation and the moderating role of performance feedback

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About