Abstract

Psychopaths have been extensively studied in prison and institutional settings and this has led to the popular view that psychopaths are all violent, anti-social and impulsive criminals. However, Cleckley, the modern pioneer in psychopathy research, clearly stated in his seminal book “The Mask of Sanity” that most psychopaths will not end up in prison and that they live among us, including as scientists, engineers, academics and doctors. This talk focusses on those psychopaths who work in the corporate and organizational sector. An outline of the quantitative and qualitative ways in which these people have been researched will be made, together with a delineation of the main findings of this work so far.

Professor Clive Boddy will be on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire talking about corporate psychopaths at 7.50am on Friday morning, 3 June.

Suggested Further Reading on Corporate Psychopaths

1. “The Influence of Corporate Psychopaths on Job Satisfaction and its Determinants”. Boddy C.R. &Taplin R. 2016, International Journal of Manpower. Out soon.

2. “Psychopathy Screening for Public Leadership” Boddy C.R. 2016, International Journal of Public Sector Leadership. Out soon.

3. “Unethical 20th Century Business Leaders: Were some of them Corporate Psychopaths? The Case of Robert Maxwell” Boddy C.R. 2016, International Journal of Public Sector Leadership. Out soon.

4. “Marketing in a Time of Toxic Leadership”, Qualitative Market Research, Vol. 19, issue 1, Boddy C.R. & Croft R, 2016.

5. “Psychopathic Leadership: A Case Study of a Corporate Psychopaths CEO ” On-line first, Boddy, C R . 2015, 1-16, Journal of Business Ethics.

6. “Organisational Psychopaths: A Ten Year Update” 2015, Management Decision Boddy, C R . 2015, vol. 53, no. 10, pp. 2407-2432.

7. “Extreme Managers, Extreme Workplaces: Capitalism, Organisations and Corporate Psychopaths” 2015, Organization, vol. 2, no.4, pp.530-551.

8. “Corporate Psychopaths, Conflict, Employee Affective Well-Being and Counterproductive Work Behaviour”, Journal of Business Ethics, 2014, vol. 121, no.1, pp. 107-121.

9. “The Corporate Psychopaths Theory of the Global Financial Crisis” 2011, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 102, pp. 255 – 259.

10. “Corporate Psychopaths, Bullying and Unfair Supervision in the Workplace” Journal of Business Ethics, 2011, Vol. 100, pp. 367 – 379.

11. ‘The Influence of Corporate Psychopaths on Corporate Social Responsibility and Organizational Commitment to Employees’, Journal of Business Ethics, 2010, Vol. 97, pp. 1-19.