Related Papers
This article investigates the effects of Machiavellianism (MACH) on sales performance. Results indicate that those who possess high Machiavellian traits are more productive but received lower overall managerial ratings. Findings suggest that Machiavellianism may in certain circumstances, be somewhat advantageous for long-term sales performance.
This study responds to Bay and Greenberg's (Bay, D.D. and Greenberg, R.R. (2001). The relationship of the DIT and behavior: A replication. Issues in Accounting Education 10(3): 367–380) call to investigate alternative psychometric instruments to measure ethical behavior other than the heavily relied upon Defining Issues Test. The Mach IV scale (Christie, 1970) has been cited in more than 500 published psychological studies; however, it has not been used extensively in the accounting ethics research. This study provides some preliminary evidence on the use of the Mach IV scale in an accounting ethics context. Similar to ethics studies in other academic disciplines, results across two dependent measures indicate accounting students high in Machiavellianism are more likely to view questionable ethical behavior as acceptable. The research findings also indicate that the Machiavellian construct appears to be a better predictor of ethical propensities in comparison to the commonly used Defining Issues Test. The paper concludes with a discussion on how these reported research findings impact the accounting profession and accounting education.
This study explores the relationship between 2 defecting strategies based on the manipulation of information; namely, Machiavellianism and economic opportunism. There are 3 main hypotheses that were confirmed in questionnaire investigations among samples of 191 and 113 university students in Athens. Machiavellianism was positively correlated with economic opportunism, shown by a statistically highly significant positive correlation between scores on scales measuring these 2 concepts. In situations of asymmetric information where they held the advantage, high Machs adopted more opportunistic strategies, showing the greatest inclination to maximize their own profit. High Machs showed less trust in potential economic partners, whom they regarded as untrustworthy maximizers.
An emerging stream of work on money can be found in the management and organizational behavior literature; however, individuals’ attitude toward money (whether loving or hating it) is a relatively new concept to wait to be explored by scholars. Generally, growing body of literature has to researches investigating the positive side of money. Nevertheless, in this study we aim to explain not only positive, but also negative side of money differentiating individuals very much and very little fond of money and investigate the relationship between love of money, machiavellian personality and unethical behavior of individuals. Focusing individuals’ passion for money or wealth, we also purpose to illuminate the issue whether individual groups being very much and very little fond of money represent different level of machiavellian personality and unethical behavior. In addition, we investigate how differentiates unethical behavior in terms of individual’s machiavellianism level. Demographic variables are also within the scope of this research, so individuals’ attitudes toward money, machiavellian personality and unethical behavior are explained in terms of demographic characteristics. Therefore, we gathered data from 360 MBA students and conducted hierarchical regression as well as ordinal logistic regression analyses in order to verify our hypotheses. Results indicated that machiavellianism was partially mediated the relationship between love of money and unethical behavior. Implication showed that individuals being very much fond of money were 5,87 times likely to represent upper level machiavellian personality than individuals being very little fond of money. Furthermore, individuals being very much fond of money were 3.58 times likely to exhibit upper level unethical behavior than individuals being very little fond of money. Higher degree machiavellian individuals 2.28 times likely to exhibit upper level unethical behavior than lower degree machiavellian individuals. Moreover, the evidence from the research represents that individuals not receiving ethics lesson were 2.05 times likely to exhibit upper level machiavellian personality than individuals receiving ethics lesson. Also, it can be comment males are 2.38 times likely to represent upper level unethical behavior than females.
A new measure of Machiavellianism, the Machiavellian Personality Scale (MPS), was developed and validated over two studies. Machiavellianism is conceptualized as one's propensity to distrust others, engage in amoral manipulation, seek control over others, and seek status for oneself Study I developed and tested the factor structure of the scale, whereas Study 2 provided evidence for the convergent, divergent, and criterion-related validity of the MPS. The results of these studies supported the a priori factor structure of the MPS and indicated that it is a valid predictor of such outcomes as job satisfaction, task performance, and counterproductive work behaviors