Psychological Contracts as a Mediator Between Machiavellianism and Employee Citizenship and Deviant Behaviors

Results from four studies in multiple contexts drawing on different data sources provide full support for the proposition that Machiavellian employees prefer forming transactional psychological contracts (schemas of their employee–employer relationship that are economic in nature) and that such contracts mediate the relationship between Machiavellianism and supervisor-rated (a) organizational citizenship behaviors and (b) deviant behaviors, respectively. The authors’ research contributes to scholars’ understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of the relationship between Machiavellianism and contextual performance as well as to the psychological contracts literature by demonstrating that Machiavellianism influences contextual performance because it affects the manner in which employees construe their employment relationships.

[1]  B. Niehoff,et al.  Organizational Behavior: The State of the Science (2nd ed.) , 2005 .

[2]  Raymond T. Sparrowe,et al.  The role of job security in understanding the relationship between employees' perceptions of temporary workers and employees' performance. , 2005, The Journal of applied psychology.

[3]  Karin A. Orvis,et al.  A meta-analytic investigation of conscientiousness in the prediction of job performance: examining the intercorrelations and the incremental validity of narrow traits. , 2006, The Journal of applied psychology.

[4]  Gary M. Fleischman,et al.  The Impact of Self-Esteem, Machiavellianism, and Social Capital on Attorneys' Traditional Gender Outlook , 2003 .

[5]  Delroy L. Paulhus,et al.  The construct of Machiavellianism: Twenty years later. , 1992 .

[6]  J. McHoskey,et al.  Machiavellianism, Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Goals, and Social Interest: A Self-Determination Theory Analysis , 1999 .

[7]  D. Rousseau.  Schema, promise and mutuality: The building blocks of the psychological contract , 2001 .

[8]  A. Erez,et al.  The nature and dimensionality of organizational citizenship behavior: a critical review and meta-analysis. , 2002, The Journal of applied psychology.

[9]  Martin T. Topol,et al.  Machiavellianism and the discount store executive , 1990 .

[10]  D. Ones,et al.  Interpersonal deviance, organizational deviance, and their common correlates: a review and meta-analysis. , 2007, The Journal of applied psychology.

[11]  C. Spielberger,et al.  Advances in personality assessment , 1982 .

[12]  H. Meyer.  Norms and self-interest in ultimatum bargaining: The prince's prudence , 1992 .

[13]  Robert L. Tang,et al.  Effects of psychological contract breach on performance of IT employees: The mediating role of affective commitment. , 2006 .

[14]  Ronald J. Deluga.  American presidential Machiavellianism: Implications for charismatic leadership and rated performance , 2001 .

[15]  Clifford J. Shultz.  Situational and Dispositional Predictors of Performance: A Test of the Hypothesized Machiavellianism Structure Interaction Among Sales Persons1 , 1993 .

[16]  P. Mudrack.  Machiavellianism and Locus of Control: A Meta-Analytic Review , 1990 .

[17]  Filotheos Ntalianis,et al.  The Impact of Personality on Psychological Contracts , 2004 .

[18]  Scott B. MacKenzie,et al.  Transformational leader behaviors and their effects on followers' trust in leader, satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behaviors , 1990 .

[19]  P. Blau.  Exchange and Power in Social Life , 1964 .

[20]  Jaime B. Henning,et al.  Test of Motowidlo et al.'s (1997) Theory of Individual Differences in Task and Contextual Performance , 2008 .

[21]  Robert L. Tang,et al.  Breach Begets Breach: Trickle-Down Effects of Psychological Contract Breach on Customer Service , 2010 .

[22]  R. R. Miller,et al.  Machiavellianism: a synthesis of the evolutionary and psychological literatures. , 1996, Psychological bulletin.

[23]  Daniel C. Martinez,et al.  Socioeconomic achievement and the Machiavellian personality. , 1977 .

[24]  J. B. Corzine,et al.  Machiavellianism and Management: A Review of Single-Nation Studies Exclusive of the USA and Cross-National Studies , 1997, Psychological reports.

[25]  P. Bordia,et al.  When employees strike back: investigating mediating mechanisms between psychological contract breach and workplace deviance. , 2008, The Journal of applied psychology.

[26]  J. Pandey,et al.  Machiavellianism and ingratiation. , 1979 .

[27]  R. Bennett,et al.  The past, present, and future of workplace deviance research. , 2003 .

[28]  Karl Aquino,et al.  Justice constructs, negative affectivity, and employee deviance: a proposed model and empirical test , 1999 .

[29]  T. Judge,et al.  IN SUPPORT OF PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT IN ORGANIZATIONAL SETTINGS , 2007 .

[30]  D. Lykken.  Statistical significance in psychological research. , 1968, Psychological bulletin.

[31]  Kevin Kim,et al.  The Relation Among Fit Indexes, Power, and Sample Size in Structural Equation Modeling , 2005 .

[32]  J. McHoskey,et al.  Narcissism and Machiavellianism , 1995, Psychological reports.

[33]  Tom Hindle,et al.  The Economist Guide to Management Ideas and Gurus , 2008 .

[34]  W. A. Harrell,et al.  The impact of Machiavellianism and the trustfulness of the victim on laboratory theft. , 1976, Sociometry.

[35]  Fred A. Mael,et al.  From Scientific Work to Organizational Leadership: Predictors of Management Aspiration among Technical Personnel , 2001 .

[36]  Lawrence B. Chonko,et al.  Marketing and Machiavellianism , 1984 .

[37]  G. Gemmill,et al.  Machiavellianism as a Factor in Managerial Job Strain, Job Satisfaction, and Upward Mobility , 1972 .

[38]  Kevin McCabe,et al.  Using the Machiavellianism Instrument to Predict Trustworthiness in a Bargaining Game , 2002 .

[39]  E. Morrison,et al.  WHEN EMPLOYEES FEEL BETRAYED: A MODEL OF HOW PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACT VIOLATION DEVELOPS , 1997 .

[40]  Ronald F. Piccolo,et al.  The bright and dark sides of leader traits: A review and theoretical extension of the leader trait paradigm , 2009 .

[41]  Jennifer Urner,et al.  Studies In Machiavellianism , 2016 .

[42]  W. Borman,et al.  A Theory of Individual Differences in Task and Contextual Performance , 1997 .

[43]  L. J. Williams,et al.  Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment as Predictors of Organizational Citizenship and In-Role Behaviors , 1991 .

[44]  Martin T. Topol,et al.  Machiavellian managers: Do they perform better? , 1991 .

[45]  F. Pirri.  The Prince , 1889, The Hospital.

[46]  R. Bies,et al.  Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Good Soldier Syndrome , 1989 .

[47]  B. Brown,et al.  Self-disclosure as an influence strategy: Effects of machiavellianism, androgyny, and sex , 1987 .

[48]  Robert J. Vandenberg,et al.  12 Structural Equation Modeling in Management Research: A Guide for Improved Analysis , 2009 .

[49]  R. Bennett,et al.  A TYPOLOGY OF DEVIANT WORKPLACE BEHAVIORS: A MULTIDIMENSIONAL SCALING STUDY , 1995 .

[50]  T. Bereczkei,et al.  Adult theory of mind, cooperation, Machiavellianism: The effect of mindreading on social relations , 2007 .

[51]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[52]  Kristopher J Preacher,et al.  Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models , 2008, Behavior research methods.

[53]  Clive Richardson,et al.  Machiavellianism and Economic Opportunism , 2007 .

[54]  Paul E. Levy,et al.  The Development and Validation of a New Machiavellianism Scale , 2009 .

[55]  A. Gouldner.  THE NORM OF RECIPROCITY: A PRELIMINARY STATEMENT * , 1960 .

[56]  Chun Hui,et al.  Psychological contract and organizational citizenship behavior in China: investigating generalizability and instrumentality. , 2004, The Journal of applied psychology.

[57]  J. Sparks.  Machiavellianism and personal success in marketing: The moderating role of latitude for improvisation , 1994 .

[58]  Lynne J. Millward,et al.  Psychological Contracts, Organizational and Job Commitment , 1998 .

[59]  A. Zook,et al.  Machiavellianism and dominance: Are therapists in training manipulative? , 1987 .