Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me: An exploration of the negative effects of the entrepreneur's dark side on venture performance

• Main Author: Syed, Ali Imran Aftab
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-2016
• Subjects: Antisocial personality disorder; Behavior; Bias; Employees; Employment; Entrepreneurs; Entrepreneurship; Hypotheses; Leadership; Manipulation; Morality; Narcissism; Personal relationships; Personality traits; Power; Psychopathology; Researchers; Sadism; Self control; Social exchange theory; Success
• ISBN: 9781369364262; 1369364261

There is evidence of a low survival rate among new ventures. As successful entrepreneurship provides many benefits to the economy, including jobs, factors that could negatively affect a venture’s performance are an important area of study within entrepreneurship research. One of the individual-level factors that could negatively affect a venture’s performance is the extent to which an entrepreneur possesses a high dark triad personality (i.e. the entrepreneur’s higher levels of sub-clinical Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy). Dark triad personality characteristics have previously been shown to exert adverse effects on trust, creativity, and motivation among others. This study proposes that these ‘dark’ personality characteristics, considered to be the other side of the generally positive characteristics of an entrepreneur, would have an adverse effect on the venture’s performance. This negative effect will be produced via mediation through the employees’ reduced trust in the entrepreneur. Moderators of the proposed relationship include entrepreneurs’ political skills and their self-control. The study found evidence for most of its hypotheses. It did not find support for the self-control moderation hypothesis. It also did not find support for the direct dark triad to performance hypothesis as this relationship was found to be fully mediated in the full model. Results from this study have the potential of enhancing the theoretical understanding and practice of successful entrepreneurship in general, and of clarifying the negative effects of several of the entrepreneur’s personal characteristics (known as the dark triad) in particular.