We've seen how that works on a national scale
University of Washington
These individuals believe they have superior confidence, intelligence and judgment, and will pursue any opportunity to reinforce those inflated self-views and gain admiration.
According to new research from the University of Washington,
narcissism can also cause knowledge barriers within organizations.
When different units in the same company share information, it boosts performance and creates a competitive advantage.
Narcissists hinder this knowledge transfer
due to a sense of superiority that leads them to overestimate the value of
internal knowledge and underestimate the value of external knowledge.
"Many big companies are what one would describe as multi-business firms, an organizational form where you have a corporate parent and subsidiary units," said co-author Abhinav Gupta, associate professor of management in the UW Foster School of Business. "The financial logic for why these firms exist is so that knowledge and skills that reside in one unit can be used in another unit."
But
units don't work with each other as much as companies would like, Gupta said.
The study, published April 4 in the Strategic Management Journal, revealed
that certain personality traits of executives -- specifically narcissism --
impede the flow of information.
"Narcissism
affects people's desire to be distinctive," Gupta said. "It's
correlated by people wanting glory for themselves. We hypothesized that
business-unit heads that have those traits would be the ones to say, 'We don't
want to work with you. We have sufficient skills and knowledge and abilities
that we will work independently.' That was very strongly borne out based on our
research design."
The
authors surveyed business units of a headhunting company in China that helps
organizations recruit talent and search for technical personnel. These units
must share knowledge about building talent pools, identifying skills and
persuading prospects to accept offers.
Researchers
asked unit heads to rate, among other factors, their own narcissistic traits,
the environmental complexity of the local market and perceived competition with
other units. They then asked deputies to rate the level of knowledge imported
from other units.
Narcissism
was measured using the self-report Narcissistic Personality Inventory 16-item
scale, which presents pairs of statements and asks individuals to select the
one that best describes them. One pair consisted of "I like to be the
center of attention" and "I prefer to blend in with the crowd."
The
study found that unit-head narcissism can prevent knowledge sharing. That
tendency diminished in fast-changing or complex environments because
narcissists had an excuse to pursue external ideas. But when businesses have
high inter-unit competition, narcissists are more tempted to distinguish
themselves from other units.
The
research has multiple implications for companies, Gupta said. For example, when
filling roles that require knowledge sharing, managers might watch for signs of
narcissistic personality traits. Companies could also design an organization
and reward structure that encourages cooperation among current personnel.
"There
are two views of how multi-business firms create value," Gupta said.
"One perspective is you want to run an organization like an internal
market. All the units are actively competing for resources from the corporate
headquarters, and that competition is what enables superior performance.
"This
research kind of goes against the grain of that. If you create the perception
of competition inside an organization, then that will have some downstream
effects. You will be essentially foregoing some essential knowledge-sharing
activities."
The
study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
The other co-authors were Xin Liu of Remin University of China, Lin Zhang of Peking University, Changqi Wu of Shangdong University and Xiaoming Zheng of Tsinghua University.
