Narcissism in CEO research: a review and replication of the archival approach
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Narcissism in CEO research: a review and replication of the archival approach James R. Van Scotter II1 Received: 23 June 2019 / Accepted: 9 December 2019 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Abstract Using an unobtrusive archival narcissism measure (Chatterjee and Hambrick in Adm Sci Q 52:351–386, 2007; Adm Sci Q 56:202–237, 2011), CEO narcissism has been linked to important strategic issues: overpayment for acquisitions, risk taking, fraud, etc., but measurement unreliability raises important questions about this research. Six studies (N = 791, comprising 5.3% of CEOs in this review) reported Cronbach’s alphas that met minimum standards (.71 ≤ α ≤ .75) along with other reliability results that were often mixed (e.g. poor test–retest reliability and factor analysis results). However, 37 studies (N = 14,165, 94.7% of CEOs) had unacceptable reliability or failed to report any evidence of reliability at all. Out of 43 studies (total N = 14,956 CEOs), 10 studies (N = 3582) obtained unreported (calculated) Cronbach’s α ≤ .58, 10 studies reported no evidence of reliability or indicator correlations, despite using multiple indicators, and 10 studies justified a measure of narcissism by citing Chatterjee and Hambrick’s (2007) work, but actually relied on only a single archival indicator. Recent studies using the unobtrusive archival approach for CEO narcissism have failed to find acceptable reliability, failed to report low reliability, and have engaged in questionable data transformations. In an operational replication study, data collection procedures were carefully followed, but acceptable results were not obtained in three CEO samples. This article concludes by considering implications for CEO narcissism research and recommendations for future research involving unobtrusive measures. Keywords CEO · Narcissism · Unobtrusive · Archival · Replication · Personality JEL Classification M19 · M10 · C83
* James R. Van Scotter II [email protected] 1
University of Colorado Colorado Springs, 1420 Austin Bluffs Pkwy, Colorado Springs, CO 80919, USA
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J. R. Van Scotter II
Understanding the influence of personality on CEO performance, decision processes, and firm outcomes has long been a goal of strategic management research. Unfortunately, CEOs’ reluctance to respond to organizational surveys and personality measures is a major obstacle (Cycyota and Harrison 2002), and data that are collected are likely to be plagued by non-response biases (Rogelberg et al. 2003). Hambrick et al. (1993) estimated that typical American CEO response rates to mailed surveys ranged from 10 to 12%. Additionally, Rogelberg et al. (2003) noted that selfreport studies concerning topics negatively correlated with agreeableness and conscientiousness (e.g. narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism, hubris, etc.) were the studies most likely to be afflicted by substantive systematic non-response biases. This non-response evidence, when combined with other social desirability and idealized self-concept biases (Robins and Joh
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