Nuremberg Research Seminar in Economics on 1 February 2023 – Room 0.423

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You are invited to join the weekly Nuremberg Research Seminar in Economics on 1 February 2023, from 13.15 to 14.45 pm. The seminar will be held in room LG 0.423Uwe Jirjahn (University of Trier) will be talking about „Are Managers More Machiavellian Than Other Employees?”.

More information can be found here:

Concerns about corporate scandals and abusive leadership suggest that individuals with an opportunistic and manipulative personality take advantage of incomplete incentive and control systems to get their way into managerial positions. Against this background, we theoretically and empirically examine whether there is an association between Machiavellianism and occupying a managerial position. Our theoretical contribution incorporates the psychological concept of Machiavellianism into agency theory to predict that individuals scoring high on Machiavellianism are more likely to attain and keep a managerial position. Information asymmetries provide a series of opportunities for Machiavellians to use their manipulative behavior for gaming the system. Using a large and representative panel dataset from Germany, our empirical analysis confirms a strong and positive relationship between Machiavellianism and occupying a managerial position. Our analysis also provides evidence that the relationship is monotone; i.e., those with the highest scores of Machiavellianism are most likely to be managers. Furthermore, it suggests that the direction of causation runs from Machiavellianism to occupational status and not vice versa. We emphasize that our analysis has a series of practical implications for the corporate governance of firms and for society as a whole.