The Dark Triad

The purpose of this study is the examination of the effect of the Dark Triad personality traits, namely narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy on the innovativeness of an organization. I argue that the presence of dark personality traits influence leadership effectiveness negatively. Furthermore, I assume that leadership effectiveness has a positive effect on innovative behavior of employees and following on the exploration and exploitation of organizations. Additionally, I will test the effect of an entrepreneurial culture on these relationships. In order to test these assumptions I developed a structural equation model and tested it on a sample of Austrian leaders (N=92). The analysis of the data shows a significant negative influence of psychopathy on leadership effectiveness. Moreover I figured out that leadership effectiveness favors innovative behavior of employees and overall innovativeness. However, no influence of an entrepreneurial culture could be detected. This study contributes to the current research by indicating the negative influence of a psychopathic leader in the innovativeness of an organization.