Dispositional greed and its dark allies: An investigation among prospective managers

Studies exploring dispositional greed have been lacking, which is surprising since the recent years have witnessed increased incidences of corporate misconduct attributed in principle to individual greed. Furthermore, recent studies have suggested the inclusion of greed in the dark triad of personality to gain an insightful view of deviant behavior. In this context, we present the first empirical examination of greed as part of the dark triad among 270 prospective corporate managers (Mage = 25.7 years; SDage = 3.2 years) currently pursuing postgraduation in business studies. Our results establish that greed is significantly correlated with the dark triad and shares the same antagonistic dark core as the triad. Besides, we provide the first evidence for an antagonistic link among the recently proposed five factor model of personality disorder meant to capture such malevolent tendencies, dark triad, and dispositional greed. In conclusion, the presence of a common antagonistic orientation is seen in greed, which binds it with the other dark traits.