Do Corporate Psychopaths Cause Collapses? A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Corporate psychopaths, given their personality traits of overconfidence, greed, ambition, manipulativeness, lack of empathy, and narcissism, are destructive actors who can easily manipulate the corporate structure in financial institutions and organizations, with potentially devastating consequences. Today's business environment, where neoliberal policies have created organizational structures in which corporate interests and power are prioritized and accountability is diminished, provides a highly favorable context for managers who display such traits. It makes it difficult to detect psychopathic managers early in their organizations, and it allows them to easily climb the career ladder because they often achieve great organizational success in the short term, even if their approach later leads to corruption, scandals, or financial crises. Furthermore, the tactical acumen, effective communicative skills, captivating personalities, persuasiveness, and calm demeanor of corporate psychopaths, which mask the darker sides to their personalities, make them highly sought-after individuals. The damage such individuals inflict may be limited to the organizational level, but in times of crisis they can cause huge losses for a significant segment of society. This study examines the role of corporate psychopaths on corporate fraud, corporate scandals, and crises. It presents the findings of a bibliometric analysis using data from the Web of Science database from January 1, 2007, to November 16, 2024, accompanied by an extensive literature review. This study strikingly reveals that while there is a consensus that the psychopathic profiles of corporate managers cause corporate collapses, there is surprisingly a lack of academic attention in this topic. It therefore deserves further exploration as an interdisciplinary research area for empirical investigation and multidisciplinary modeling.