How do leaders react when treated unfairly? Leader narcissism and self-interested behavior in response to unfair treatment

Haiyang Liu, Jack Ting-Ju Chiang, Ryan Fehr, Minya Xu and Siting Wang

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: In this article we employ a trait activation framework to examine how unfairness perceptions influence narcissistic leaders’ self-interested behavior, and the downstream implications of these effects for employees’ pro-social and voice behaviors. Specifically, we propose that narcissistic leaders are particularly likely to engage in self-interested behavior when they perceive that their organizations treat them unfairly, and that this self-interested behavior in turn decreases followers’ pro-social behavior and voice. Data from a multisource, time-lagged survey of 211 team leaders and 1,205 subordinates provided support for the hypothesized model. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Keywords: narcissism; unfairness; self-interested behavior; pro-social behavior; voice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-11-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Published in Journal of Applied Psychology, 1, November, 2017, 102(11), pp. 1590 - 1599. ISSN: 0021-9010

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:88208

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