Millennials and their attitude towards team based work

MILLENNIALS AND THEIR ATTITUDE TOWARDS TEAM BASED WORK

Master thesis Business Administration – Leadership & Management

Name: M.M.P. Lemmens (10458042) Supervisor: N. Abu Ghazaleh

Date: June 2016

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Statement of originality

This document is written by Michelle Lemmens who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document. I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.

The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

3 Content Abstract………...5 Anecdote……….….6 1.0 Introduction………...……….………..7 2.0 Literature review………...……….9 2.1 An overview of narcissism………..……….9

2.1.1 Narcissism and subclinical narcissism………….………...11

2.1.2 Narcissism and the agentic and the communal domain……….11

2.2 Attitude towards team based work ………...………12

2.3 Narcissism and team attitude……… .13

2.4 Narcissism and impression management………...14

2.5 Communal and agentic forms of impression management and narcissism………...15

2.6 Impression management and team attitude………16

2.7 Gender as a moderator………..………17

2.8 Impression Management ………….……….………..18

2.9 Model..………..………19

3. Method………...………20

3.1 Sample and procedure ………..………20

3.2 Measures……….21

3.2.1 Narcissism ………….………..21

3.2.1.1Agentic narcissism ....………21

3.2.1.2 Communal narcissism………...22

3.2.2 Impression management………22

3.2.2.1 Agentic impression management………..23

3.2.2.2 Communal impression management ……….………..23

3.2.3 Team attitude..….…….………23

3.2.4 Gender..….……….……….………..24

3.2.5 Impression management .……….23

3.2.6 Control variables ………..23

3.2.7 Means and standard deviations………...24

4.0 Results………...………..25

4.1 Pearson correlation matrix………..25

4.2 Regression analysis………..……….27

4.2.1 Narcissism and Impression management……..………27

4.2.2 Agentic narcissism and Agentic impression management……..………..27

4.2.3 Moderation effect……..………28

4.2.3.1 Narcissism and impression management………..………28

4.2.3.2 Narcissism and team attitude………..………..29

4.2.3.3 Impression management and team attitude…………..……….29

4.2.4 Mediation effect……...……….30

5.0 Discussion…...32

5.1 Main findings……….……….………..32

5.2 Theoretical and practical implications…...……….33

5.3 Limitations and strengths ..……….………...………33

5.4 Implications for further research ………..………..………34

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7.0 References………..……….37 8.0 Appendix ………... 43

5 Abstract

The generation that is now entering the work force is called the millennial generation. Also known as ‘millennials’. Millennials have the highest subclinical narcissism rate in thirty years. Millennials are also said to be very good team players. Narcissists are self-centred, feel entitled and are exploitative of others. A team player is open to new ideas, acts for the good of the group and acts selfless to achieve the common goal. Narcissism and team play seem opposite characteristics. However, both characteristics are used to describe the millennial generation. No research so far has tried to explain these contradictions within the millennial generation. This research addresses this gap empirically by searching for an explanation for these narcissistic tendencies and the preference for teamwork within the millennial generation. This research investigates if there is a link between narcissism and attitude towards teamwork. And also looks at the influence of impression management as a mediator variable between narcissism and attitude towards team based work. Impression management is when a person tries to control the impression he/she makes on others, by behaving in a certain manner. Next to that, this research looked at gender as a moderating variable. A survey based research among 221 millennial students with different educational backgrounds was conducted. The survey measured the level of narcissism and the attitude towards team based work of these millennial students. Also the level of impression management was measured. No significant relationship between narcissism and attitude towards team based work was found. A positive relationship was found between impression management and narcissism. No significant relationship was found between impression management and team attitude. This research also showed no mediation effect of impression management on the relationship between narcissism and attitude towards team based work. Furthermore no moderating effect was found on gender.

Key words: millennial generation, narcissism, attitude towards teamwork, impression management

6 Anecdote

Article from satire newsmagazine ‘De Speld’ 18-01-2016

All student team members had to do all the work by

themselves

The rest didn’t do shit.

January 18th 2016 by Rudolf Julius and Alexander Brandenburg

A mandatory group assignment caused a lot of frustration for five students from a political study at the University of Leiden. All five members of the team had to do all the work by themselves, because the rest didn’t do anything.

Sharon (21) is furious with her teammates: ‘It is totally fine with me if they want to graduate in eight years, but I don’t. I do think it is important to get good grades. So finally all the work came down to me. I worked until very late at night. The rest didn’t do shit, but they will also get the high grade that I got them.”

Robert (21) had seen it coming from the first meeting onwards: “That’s why I decided to make it clear right away, who is going to do what. With the planning I had made, we would have been done far before the deadline. But apparently I was the only one who was

committed. I never want to work in a group anymore.”

Professor Michiel Walraven sticks to the importance of team assignments, because students have to learn how to work together in groups of five: “That way I have five times less papers to review”.

7 Introduction

People that suffer from severe narcissism are diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD; American Psychiatric Association, 2011). The past decades, more attention has been given to something called subclinical narcissism. Subclinical narcissism is for the larger part similar to clinical narcissism, however not so severe that it needs psychiatric treatment. The millennial generation has the highest subclinical narcissism rate in thirty years (Westerman et al., 2012; Twenge, Konrath, Foster, Campbell, & Bushman, 2008; Twenge & Campbell,2008; Twenge et al., 2008a; Twenge & Foster, 2008; Twenge et al., 2008b). The millennial generation is the generation born between 1980 and 2000, that is now entering the workforce (Howe & Strauss, 2000).

People with NPD are characterised by extreme feelings of love. They are self-centred, exploitative of others and have trouble maintaining relationships with others, in friendships as well as romantically (Myers & Zeigler-Hill, 2011; American Psychiatric Association, 2011). Narcissists are overly confident in their own abilities (Campbell et al., 2002). They can cost a lot of trouble in the work environment. Narcissism has been used with increasing frequency to describe destructive work behaviours in organizations, in particular destructive work behaviours of CEO’s and politicians (Campbell et al., 2011). Narcissism has a clear link with counterproductive work behaviours, which are behaviours of employees that intent to bring damage to the organization or its members, like interpersonal aggression, theft, sabotage or wasting time or materials from the organization (Penney & Spector, 2002). Subclinical narcissism has the same traits as a clinical narcissist that suffers from NPD, but in a manner that is less severe and that does not need psychiatric treatment. Subclinical narcissism is also called trait narcissism.

Organizations today are very team based (Ro & Choi, 2011). This is caused by the belief that two minds are greater than one (Forsyth, 2010). While the generations preceding the millennial generation become more and more individualistic, millennials prefer to work in teams (Twenge, Campbell & Gentile, 2012; Twenge, Campbell & Gentile, 2013; Alsop, 2008). Alsop (2008) believes that is because they are used to it. Millennials are used to study in teams, play team sports, have a lot of group assignments at school, even have to grade each other on team assignments. Teams can be a very valuable asset for an organization, but their composition is essential for their success (O’Leary, 1996). Personal traits play an important role in a team’s effectiveness. To be effective as a team, the team requires a degree of unity. Members of the team need to share and understand the same collective goal, but they also need to be equally committed to achieve the team goals (Forsyth, 2010). Narcissist have the

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tendency to ‘social loaf’. Social loafing is when one reduced their effort when working in a team. Which results in other team members having to work harder, to make up for that. Narcissists also ‘free ride’, which is when one totally neglects their task, having someone else having to do their job. Narcissists are often hypersensitive to evaluation and potential criticism. Furthermore, narcissists tend to get aggressive when things do not go their way (Aggerwal & O’Brien, 2008; Bushman & Baumeister, 1998). As pointed out earlier, narcissists are self-centred, have trouble maintaining relationships, are exploitative of others and blame others for mistakes, while taking credit for success. Social loafing and free riding is more likely to appear when their individual contribution is not visible in the total outcome. Yet, millennials are team players. The main question in this research is: is there a relationship

between narcissism and attitude towards team based work in the millennium generation? The underlying question is: could that be explained by impression management?

Soon millennials will not only dominate in number, but will also occupy important positions in the top level of companies. Therefore it is important to get a better understanding of this generation and its contradicting characteristics. Being narcissistic and being a team player are two main characteristics of the millennial generation. Although they are contradictory, no study so far has tried to find out if there is a link between these two characteristics. This research contributes to the theory, by finding out if there is a link between narcissism and attitude towards team based work within the millennial generation. Besides, researchers find that millennials have higher narcissism levels than previous generations. Bourdage, Wiltshire and Lee (2014) find a positive relationship between narcissism and impression management. No study so far has examined if the link between narcissism and impression management also exists within the millennial generation.

The structure of this research is as follows: first a literature review will be conducted to explain the main concepts of this research. In addition, hypotheses are formulated and explained in a conceptual model. Subsequently the methodology used in this research is explained and the results of the research are presented. The results, limitations, strengths and possibilities for future research of this research will then be discussed. Finally the conclusion will give an answer to the main research question.

9 2.0 Literature review

2.1 An overview of narcissism

Narcissism is according to the American Psychiatric Association (2011; DSM V) a personality disorder and is considered to be a pathological form of self-love (Myers & Zeigler-Hill, 2011). The disorder is named after the Greek myth Narcissus, who rejected love from others, to fall in love with his own reflection. According to the DSM V all personality disorders are characterized by impairments in personality functioning, for both the self and interpersonal, and include the presence of pathological traits. This causes narcissists to have trouble establishing enduring relationships with others (Campbell, 2011), both friendships and romantically (Campbell & Foster, 2002; Campbell 1999). Narcissists have trouble seeing things other than from their personal viewpoint, therefore they cannot get along well with others (Carlson, 2013). They are insensitive to others concerns and social constraints (Raskin & Terry, 1988). They have an inflated self-view (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). Narcissists have a very high opinion about themselves, are very self-serving and self-centred (Twenge, Campbell & Freeman, 2012). This has as a consequence that they take others for granted and are often exploitative of others (American Psychiatric Association, 2011). However, people higher in narcissism often display hypersensitivity to evaluation and potential criticism (Bushman & Baumeister, 1998). Different psychological theories state that it is normal behaviour in a child’s developmental stage to be selfish and to have desires at the expense of others (Chopik, Joshi & Konrath, 2014). However as one grows older, these tendencies should disappear. Freud also states that narcissistic traits are only considered a mental disorder when they occur after puberty. Narcissists were also believed to lack self-insight. Carlson, Vazire and Oltmanns (2011) however, find in their research that narcissists do realize that other people do not see them as positive as they see themselves. They even describe themselves as narcissistic and arrogant (Carlson, 2013). A sense of entitlement, self-enhancement and a need for power are important motivators for narcissistic behaviours (Campbell et al., 2011). Often narcissists are unaware of their own motivations. The pathological traits that go with narcissism are excessive reference to others for their self-definition and their self-esteem regulation, an exaggerated self-appraisal and an emotional regulation that is mirrored by their fluctuations in self-esteem (American Psychiatric Association, 2011). Their goals are often based on gaining others’ approval and they have standards that are either unreasonably high, so they can see themselves as exceptional, or exceptionally low due to a sense of entitlement. Funny thing is that they are in fact not better than others (Gardner & Pierce, 2011). They have

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trouble understanding the feelings and needs of others. The narcissistic self is related to specialness and uniqueness of the self. Narcissists experience great difficulty with empathy and emotional intimacy what makes it hard for them to build stable enduring relationships (Campbell et al., 2011). Friendships are often build on genuine interest in the other person, something a narcissist lacks. Instead they have many shallow relationships ranging from exciting and engaging ones, to exploitative and manipulative ones. Their relationships are therefore largely superficial and often exist to serve self-esteem regulation. Narcissists however, seek a lot of attention and admiration from others, to be able to upheld the image they have of themselves. They need others to confirm what they think of them self. In order to do that and keep their social status, power and sense of entitlement, narcissist are believed by some to use self-regulatory strategies (Campbell et al., 2011; Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). Morf and Rhodewalt (2001) developed a model, called the dynamic self-regulatory processing model. They propose that narcissists engage in self-promoting strategies in order to upheld the positive view they have of the self. They are looking for others’ feedback in order to regulate their self-esteem. They are also described as constantly seeking for attention and admiration and are very much concerned with how favourable others see them and how well they are doing in the eyes of others. A paradox that is not too hard to explain. Bushman and Baumeister (1998) had already found that people higher in narcissism often display hypersensitivity to evaluation and potential criticism. According to Morf & Rhodewalt the extremely positive but at the same time fragile self-views, exist because the narcissistic self is not grounded in an objective reality and therefore cannot stand on its own. Therefore it constantly needs reinforcement that they seek in the form of positive feedback from others (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). One should be careful not to mix narcissism with high self-esteem. Horvath and Morf (2010) looked into the difference between narcissists and other people with high self-esteem. Narcissists engage as well as individuals with high self-esteem, in active self-enhancement to support their positive self-views. The difference however, is that the individuals with genuine high self-esteem desire to be valued by social community, while narcissists only care about asserting their superiority. Millennial students display significant higher levels of narcissism than students of previous generations (Westerman et al., 2012; Twenge, Konrath, Foster, Campbell, & Bushman, 2008). Twenge and Campbell (2008) reviewed data from 1.4 million people whose attitudes and behaviours were measured between 1930’s and 2008 and compared the results to discuss how these differences would impact the work place. Participants filled out the same questionnaire when they were the same age, just at different historical points in time. Because the maturity effect has been ruled out,

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the results can be attributed to generational differences (Twenge & Campbell, 2008). They find that the Millennial generation has different preferences and higher narcissism rates than other generations at the same age.

2.1.1 Narcissism and subclinical narcissism

Social psychologists have adopted the term narcissism to refer to a measurable personality trait found in the general population (Raskin & Terry, 1988). Something called ‘subclinical narcissism’ (Campbell et al., 2011).

Subclinical narcissism is a normal personality trait that healthy individuals possess to a certain degree (Morf & Rhodewalt, 1995). There are a lot of people who display signs of narcissism, without meeting the requirements for Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). In order to be classified as a disorder, certain criteria have to be met. When people do not meet these criteria but score high on narcissistic traits, this is called ‘subclinical narcissism’ (Campbell et al., 2011). Clinical and subclinical narcissism agree on many respects (Bergman et al., 2011). Including on the level of personality structure. Therefore both clinical as well as subclinical narcissism research will be used as a foundation for this thesis.

2.1.2 Narcissism at the agentic and the communal domain

Narcissists need to feed their self-views of grandiosity, entitlement, esteem and power. According to the literature they do that by evaluating themselves unrealistically positive on the agency domain (Gebauer et al, 2012). The areas narcissists evaluate themselves positive on in this case are extraversion, uniqueness and competence. Rather than the area of communion by which relatedness, warmth and agreeableness are meant. However, Gebauer et al. (2012) introduce a new model: the agency- communion model of narcissism. This is a new and broader formulation of narcissism. This broader model states that past research has only described one type of grandiose narcissism, agentic narcissism. They are however of the opinion that there is another equally important one, communal narcissism.

Gebauer et al. (2012) state that the NPI, that is widely used as a tool to measure narcissism, only measures agentic narcissism. According to their theory one can also be narcissistic on the domain of community. One satisfies their needs of grandiosity, entitlement, power and esteem in the communal domain. Where the agentic domain focuses more on intelligence and ability, the communal domain is about being helpful to others, being a good friend and making the world a better place. Millennials have a higher narcissism rate than

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other generations but they are characterized by contradicting characteristics. It could be possible that there are two types of millennials.

This is not the first time that millennials are divided into two groups in the literature. Millennials are described in the literature on the one hand as entitled, deserving and arrogant. Like the world is waiting for them. On the other hand they are described as believing that they are going to make the world a better place, caring for the planet and believing in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Which shows by the enormous increase of volunteers in this generation. However, this rise in volunteerism seems to be because of mandatory for school graduation ( Twenge, Freeman & Campbell, 2012). Van Meter et al. (2012) already proposed that there are two different types of millennials based on ethical ideology. One group that is more approving of ethical violations and one group that is not approving of ethical violations.

This leads to think that millennials can be divided into two groups. Since this is a narcissistic generation, one will satisfy their narcissistic tendencies on one domain and the other group on the other domain, one belongs to one of both groups. This leads to the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1: There is a negative relationship between communal and agentic narcissism 2.2 Attitude towards team based work

Many of today’s organizations work with teams. Organizations may be willing to give their new employees some on the job training, but they expect them to at least understand why team work skills are important to their organization (Adams & Ruiz Ulloa, 2004). Organizations expect graduates to have learned the basics of team work at their university. As a response to that, high schools and universities implement student group projects in their curricula (Aggerwal & O’Brien, 2008; Adams & Ruiz Ulloa, 2004). Especially in business schools student project groups are a popular teaching tool (Huff, Cooper & Jones, 2002). Active learning is seen as an effective way of teaching students leadership skills, teamwork and decision making (McCorkle et al., 1999). Due to time pressure, team members are forced to use those three skills in order to finish the project on time. Skills they will need in the ‘real world’ (Buckenmyer, 2000).

However, students have their complaints about student team work (Buckenmyer, 2000; Ro and Choi , 2011; McCorkle et al., 1999). Main examples of student complaints are that a student team is often more a collection of individuals who have their own agenda instead of a unity with the same goals, absence of clear team objectives and differences in

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effort that team members are willing to put into the project (Buckenmyer, 2000). Ro and Choi (2011) find free riding and social loafing to be important obstacles for students in working in teams. Social loafing is when people have the tendency to reduce their effort when collectively working on a task (Williams, Harkins & Latané, 1981). Free riding is when they stop taking responsibility for their part of the work. Other obstacles are team members who come to meetings unprepared (McCorkle et al., 1999). Also the coordination of schedules between team members is seen as a problem for group work (Ro & Choi, 2011; McCorkle et al., 1999). And lack of development in the team processes can also cause negative experiences with teams (i.e. not knowing how to maintain team effort, choose a leader or handle conflict; Buckenmyer, 2000). Which in turn will lead to a negative attitude towards team work (Ro & Choi, 2011).

Ro and Choi (2011) believe that student’s overall team project experiences are an important factor for understanding their general attitude towards team based work. To assess general team experience they focus on three elements of working in teams (1) team project design (2) teamwork (3) peer evaluation. One’s experience with a project, according to Ro and Choi (2011), depends on how they feel the project is set up, how the interaction was between team members and how they evaluate each other. Then consequently, that experience helps them form their general attitude towards team based work.

2.3 Narcissism and Team attitude

Good team players are often defined in terms of traits (Driskell et al., 2006). Dependable, cooperative and flexible are some of the traits to describe someone that is a good team player. Critical across all team member dimensions in the positive way are adjustment and flexibility, which a narcissist lacks. Narcissists also lack genuine interest in other people’s concerns and social constraints which makes interpersonal relationships very hard for them (American Psychiatric Association, 2011). They think they are better than other people, although they are not, they do not take the blame for failures but do take credit for successes and have a tendency to take others for granted or exploit them (American Psychiatric Association, 2011). This makes them bad team players and not fun to work with for the other team members. A team requires people to work interdependently (Forsyth, 2010). In every team, members ought to work very closely together. The contributions of every individual member of the team are so tightly coupled to the others, that the outcomes of one person influence all other outcomes of the team. In order to succeed as a team, all team members have to not only

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understand the common goal, agree on how to attain it but all work equally hard and selflessly to attain it. Any irregularities in a team, either on the personal level or work level can be damaging to its success (Forsyth, 2010). Only teams that score high on all facets of team work can be seen as high performing teams. And that is in the end what every company wants.

Adams and Ruiz Ulloa (2004) find that seven characteristics identified by Adams et al (2002) as the main elements of effective teamwork, are each highly related to attitude. These seven items for effective teamwork were: productive conflict resolution, role clarity, mature communication, goal clarification, interdependence, psychological safety and common purpose (Adams et al., 2002). Dominance and controlling can be damaging for interdependent team interaction. Therefore logically narcissists will not contribute to effective team work.

Narcissists tend to get aggressive if things do not go their way, they have the tendency to social loaf or free ride when their personal output is not visible in the group output, or do everything by themselves to show off, set the bar either extremely high to show off or unreasonably low due to a sense of entitlement. Think they are better than others, have impairments in personality functioning, blame others for failures and take credit for success. When applying the theory of Adams et al. (2002) narcissists would therefore have a negative attitude towards team work.

Applying the theory of Ro and Choi (2011) leads to the same conclusion. If project experiences lead to a certain general attitude towards working in teams, than negative team experiences would lead to a negative general attitude towards working in teams. This leads to the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 2a: There is a negative relationship between narcissism and attitude towards team based work in the way that the higher the score on narcissism, the more negative the attitude towards team based work

2.4 Narcissism and impression management

Bolino (1999) already theorized that organizational citizenship behaviours were maybe not so selfless of employees as one thought, but perhaps more a way of making a good impression on others and therefore self-serving. Bourdage, Wiltshire and Lee (2014) investigate the role of personality in impression management (IM) behaviour and find that the personality dimension ‘honesty –humility’, which is comparable to high on narcissism, would play a central role in explaining impression management behaviour. A person who is low in the honesty- humility trait engages in manipulation, exploitation and deceit, is insincere, entitled and status-oriented and is therefore comparable to narcissism. The common five core

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underlying behaviours of impression management have a strong negative relationship to the Honesty-Humility trait (Bourdage, Wiltshire and Lee, 2014). People that scored low on the Honesty-Humility trait were more likely to engage in all five IM behaviours. It seems like lack of empathy inevitably leads to a tendency to manipulate others (Paulhus & Jones, 2015). Narcissists are also described as constantly seeking for attention and admiration and are very much concerned with how favourable others see them (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). Since a low score on honesty humility is comparable to narcissism and honesty humility is related to impression management, is expected that the NPI which is the most common measure for narcissism will also have a positive relationship with impression management. Therefore the following hypothesis is formulated:

Hypothesis 3a: Narcissism is positively related to impression management 2.5 Communal and agentic forms of impression management

Impression management is a way of socially desirable responding (SDR; Blasberg et al., 2013). It means that someone has the tendency to give a positive self-description. In other words, to present him or herself in a good way. One has the tendency to consciously manage the impression one makes on others.

Where the agentic domain focuses more on intelligence and ability, the communal domain is about being helpful to others, being a good friend and making the world a better place. Gebauer et al. (2012) came up with a new model that divided narcissism into two domains: the agentic and the communal domain. Blasberg et al. (2013) came up with a same division into a communal and agentic domain for impression management. In this model, the agentic domain refers to being achievement striving and differentiating oneself from others, while communion refers to an integration with and concern for others (Blasberg et al., 2013). The agentic and communal domain of narcissism are comparable to those of impression management. Someone that focuses on intelligence, dominance and ability logically wants to differentiate him or herself from others on that domain and impress others by their intelligence and ability. While it would be logical for someone that focusses on the communion domain to impress on kindness and morality.

The literature also gives the impression that there are two different tendencies within the millennial generation. On the one hand the millennial generation is known for being an achievement oriented generation (Alsop, 2008). They worry about their grades and building sufficient resumes to get into college (Baer & Cheryomukhin, 2011). On the other hand, they live in a time where people give more attention to the environment, a health y lifestyle and

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putting their happiness first. Alsop (2008) states that millennials can be impressive in their ambition and care for society. They are the most socially conscience generation since the 1960’s say Meister & Karie (2010). Generation Y is seen as a generation with an interest in serving others (Lovern, 2001). Meister & Karie (2010) describe the millennial generation as probably the first to find value to their work and personal development more important than their pay check at the end of the month. While others say this generation is more self-focused than other generations (Twenge, 2014; Twenge & Campbell , 2008a; Twenge, Campbell & Gentile, 2013; Twenge, Campbell & Gentile, 2014). And their volunteering activities are for the larger part because its mandatory for graduation (Twenge, Freeman & Campbell, 2012). Brunell, Tumblin and Buelow (2014) confirm this in their research. They wondered if today’s students were really more interested in humanitarian work than before, or that the high rate of volunteers among students came from different motives. Of course in many schools taking part in volunteerism is mandatory in order to graduate. It is also an appreciated quality for college admission considerations. Volunteerism activities are an opportunity to acquire service related skills one can add to their resume. Interestingly enough Konrath et al. (2011) find that empathy for others had decreased, while traits related to self-interest had increased over the past thirty years (Chopik, Joshi and Konrath, 2014). And indeed millennials volunteering activities did not happen out of pure altruism (Brunell, Tumblin & Buelow ,2014). This leads to the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 3b: There is a positive relationship between agentic narcissism and agentic impression management

Hypothesis 3c: There is a positive relationship between communal narcissism and communal impression management

2.6 Impression management and team attitude

Impression management means that someone tries to influence the way other people see them. Given the fact that teamwork is highly valued in organizations these days, and jobs are hard to come by (the recent recession has cost a lot of people their jobs), someone that wants to be seen as the ideal candidate for a job and leave a positive impression on the recruiter, would probably have to have a positive attitude towards team based work. So someone that engages in impression management will make sure that they come across as a good team player. This leads to the following hypothesis:

17 2.7 Gender as a moderator

For the successes and failures of a team the communication and collaboration between team members is crucial (Ivanova-Stenzel & Kübler, 2011). Therefore it is important to know how gender differences affect team attitude. Ro and Choi (2011) find in their study that female students have a more negative attitude towards team based work than male students. They also find gender to be a significant moderator in the perception attitude relationship. The perception of a group’s teamwork(i.e. how you think a group is going to function) is more significant for females than males in predicting student attitudes. Men start a group project more as a tabula rasa, whereas women start analysing every group member individually and try to anticipate on how they believe the process will go and what to expect of every group member. This way women start the group process more biased than men.

Success or failure of the team depends on how the group works together. Narcissistic individuals obstruct the group process. Team attitude depends often on the effectiveness of the team. A team that has members that obstruct the process is not effective. Therefore these members will have a more negative attitude towards teamwork. Since men are more prone to narcissism than women (Wright, O’Leary & Balkin, 1989) this should be stronger for men than for women.

Hypothesis 5a: gender is negatively related to team attitude, in the way that females have a more negative attitude towards working in team than males

Hypothesis 5b: the relationship between narcissism and team attitude is moderated by gender in the way that for men this relationship is stronger than for women

Wright, O’Leary & Balkin (1989) find men to be more prone to narcissism than women. If men are more prone to narcissism, and people high in narcissism engage in impression management (Bourdage, Wiltshire & Lee, 2014), then men more than women should engage in impression management.

Hypothesis 5c: the relationship between narcissism and impression management is moderated by gender in the way that for men this relationship is stronger than for women

If men are indeed more prone to narcissism and men therefore engage more in impression management, men would feel a stronger need for stating that they have a positive team attitude than women. Therefore the following hypothesis is formulated:

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Hypothesis 5d: the relationship between impression management and team attitude is moderated by gender in the way that for men this relationship is stronger than for women 2.8 Impression Management (Mediator)

Impression management means that one is concerned about the impression he or she makes on others in the way that one wants to leave a positive impression. Narcissists are hypothesised to have a negative attitude towards teamwork. However, they know that teamwork is valued highly by organizations. Narcissists have a tendency of wanting to be the best and are known for engaging in impression management (Bourdage, Wiltshire & Lee, 2014). If the company they wish to apply for a job puts high value on teamwork, will they go as far as fake liking teamwork in order to get the job? They want to make a good impression at any cost. Does this mean that via impression management, the relationship between narcissism and team attitude changes from a negative one to a positive one? This leads to the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 6: Narcissism has an effect on millennials attitude towards team based work directly and indirectly via impression management

19 2.9 Models Narcissism - Agentic - Communal Impression Management - Agentic - Communal Team attitude Narcissism - Agentic - Communal Narcissism - Agentic - Communal Attitude towards team based work Impression managment - Agentic - Communal Impression managment - Agentic - Communal Gender Gender Narcissism - Agentic - Communal Narcissism - Agentic - Communal

20 3.0 Method

3.1 Sample and procedure

For this study data was gathered through a survey. The survey was distributed mid December 2015 and was valid until the first week of January 2016. The sample consisted of students and employees of the millennial generation with different educational backgrounds. Of the 264 respondents that responded within this time 221 respondents completed the survey. The sample was a convenience sample of a personal social network. Data were gathered using Qualtrics survey builder and were distributed through Facebook, relevant Facebook pages such as ‘admitted FEB students 2015-2016’ and ‘Rechtsgeleerdheid UvA’ , via email and Whatsapp to family, friends and colleagues. Family and friends than distributed than to their family, friends and colleagues. Also employees of the employment agency Young Capital took part in this survey. Young Capital is an employment agency consisting of mostly millennial employees, that focus on putting the millennial generation to work. With their slogan ‘the new generation at work’ they fit the sample well.

The sample consisted of 26,7% males and 73,3% females. The average age of this sample was 25,7 years (SD = 3.38). In this sample 52,1% of respondents had their master degree or higher, 24,9% were in their bachelor years, 15,4% were in higher vocational education, 5,5% was still in high school and only 2.3% did lower vocational education. As for area of expertise regarding their education 16.3% studied law, 24% medicine, 23,1% business/management, 8,6% psychology and 37,6% chose a different area of expertise. 22,2% Of the sample was studying while having a side job, 10,9% was just studying with no side job, 63,3% had a job, 3,6% was unemployed. In the sample only 3,6% said to come across team experiences less than once a year, 14,5% once or twice a year, 19,9% three to four times a year, 11,8% five to six times a year and 50,2% said to have to do team assignments more than six times a year.

The statistical analysis has been done using SPSS 23.0. Prior to using the data, the data were checked for normality, skewness and kurtosis. All participants that did not go further than answering the first few questions were deleted from the dataset. Others were kept. If any missing values would occur, these boxes remained empty so these respondents were left out for that particular analysis. Psychometric analyses was conducted through an evaluation of the scale reliabilities. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient is generally the tool to test internal consistency. This coefficient can range from 0 to 1 and should be equal to or greater than 0.70 to be considered as strong (Connelly, 2011). Unfortunately three scales in this study did not

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make that cut. One, an impression management scale, was a back-up scale and could be left out easily. The other two scales to measure impression management, together form the Bidimensional Impression Management Index (BIMI) by Blasberg et al. (2013). The one scale measures agentic impression management, the other scale communal impression management. Unfortunately, both scales were not strong enough to be used as independent scales in this research. Together, they form an overall impression management scale that contains both agentic and communal forms of impression management. And combined they were strong enough to be used as a measure in this study (α = .62). The downside was that no distinctions could be made in the analysis for agentic and communal impression management, since there now only was an overall impression management tool.

3.2 Measures

In order to measure the variables that are represented in the conceptual model, these variables are operationalised as follows:

3.2.1. Narcissism (independent variable) 3.2.1.1 Agentic narcissism

The Narcissistic Personality Inventory of Ames et al. (2006) was used to measure agentic narcissism. For time and length purposes of the questionnaire, the short version of sixteen items was used for this research. The NPI-16 is a short version of the original 40 item NPI scale by Raskin & Terry (1988). The NPI was originally developed to measure individual differences in personalities in nonclinical populations (Raskin & Terry, 1988). The short version showed consistent findings to the original 40 item version (Ames et al., 2006). There is debate about the number of dimensions included in the sixteen item version of the NPI (Paulhus & Jones, 2015). The NPI-16 was designed to be a unidimensional scale, that held four items to four dimensions, which are: Self-admiration/Self-absorption, Exploitiveness/Entitlement, Leadership/Authority and Superiority/Arrogance. Confirmatory factor analysis shows that the sixteen items of the sixteen item NPI-scale account for four different dimensions in this research. All factor loadings than are significant, which adds to the validity of the construct. When forced a unidimensional scale, only two items loadings are smaller than .30.

The items of the NPI-16 are answered on a 7 point Likert scale from do not agree at all to agree completely. Example questions are ‘I think I am a special person’ or ‘I know that I am good because everybody keeps telling me so’. Usually, the items of the NPI-40 are

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presented as a forced choice format (Boldero, Bell &Davies, 2015). It then consists of a narcissistic response and a non-narcissistic response. However, in line with Jordan et al. (2003), who asked participants the degree to which they agreed with each of the 40 narcissistic statements on a 7 point Likert scale from ‘does not apply at all’ to ‘applies completely’, this research used a 7 point Likert scale instead of a forced choice format. Boldero, Bell and Davies (2015) find the rating version using a Likert scale compared to the original binary version to provide enhanced information. According to Golec de Zavala, Cichocka, Eidelson & Jayawickreme (2009) the version of Jordan et al. (2003) has improved psychometric properties in comparison to the original forced-choice format version. Because to my knowledge, the Likert scale method was not used on the sixteen item version of the NPI before, only on the forty item version, a test run was conducted on 17 respondents. The test run provided a Cronbach’s alpha of α = .83. This showed sufficient reliability to use the 7 point Likert scale format in this research. The Cronbach’s alpha of the total sample was α = .85, which contributes to the reliability of this scale.

3.2.1.2 Communal narcissism

Communal Narcissism is measured by a construct developed by Gebauer, Verplanken, Sedikides & Maio (2012). The Communal Narcissism Inventory (CNI) measures communal narcissism by sixteen items, that represent communal narcissistic traits. These items are rated on a 7 point Likert scale from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’. Example items are ‘I am the most helpful person I know’ and ‘I am the best friend someone can have’. Gebauer, Verplanken, Sedikides & Maio (2012) find a Cronbach’s alpha that is .86 or greater. Tested on twelve different samples. Gebauer, Verplanken, Sedikides & Maio (2012) also find high factor loadings on one dimension, with an eigenvalue of greater than thirteen. However in this research the CNI scale has a Cronbach’s alpha of α = .68, which makes it a reliable scale. Confirmatory factor analysis presents not one, but five dimensions. All factor loadings are than significant. When forcing the scale to be one dimensional, only nine out of sixteen items are significant.

3.2.2 Impression Management (independent variable)

To measure Impression management, the Bidimensional Impression Management Index (BIMI) by Blasberg et al. (2013) was used. The BIMI consists of two dimensions: agentic impression management and communal impression management. Researchers that used the popular scales on socially desirable responding (SDR), assumed that content was not

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important to whether someone’s answers are honest or favourable to a set of questions (Blasberg, Rogers & Paulhus, 2013). Recently, the importance of content has been acknowledged. The advantage of the BIMI is that it has the ability to determine whether the contextual pressure to answer desirably is of an agentic or communal nature.

3.2.2.1 Agentic impression management

Agentic impression management is measured by ten items on a 7 point Likert scale from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’. Factor analysis acknowledges three dimensions. However when forcing a unidimensional scale, two items do not seem significant. The factor loading of ‘My leadership of the group guarantees the groups success’ had the highest factor loading (.72). Example items for agentic IM are ‘I have mastered every challenge put before me in life’ or ‘I am always brave in threatening situations’. The Cronbach’s alpha is α = .56, which is too low to be a reliable scale. Five out of ten items are formulated as counter indicative items and were reverse coded.

3.2.2.2 Communal impression management

Communal impression management is measured by ten items on a 7 point Likert scale from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’. Example items are: ‘I don’t gossip about other people’s business’ and ‘I never swear’. The highest factor loading is for ‘I have said something bad about someone behind their back’ (.71). The Cronbach’s alpha is α = .57. Five out of ten items are formulated as counter indicative items and were reverse coded. All twenty items together form the total impression management scale with a Cronbach’s alpha of α = .63.

3.2.3 Team attitude (dependent variable)

Team Attitude was measured by a construct from Ro and Choi (2011), who used seven items originally retrieved from Friedman et al. (2008). These 7 items measured attitude towards working in teams on a 5 point Likert scale from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’. Example items are ‘I really like working in teams’ or ‘I think the team project experience is important for my education’. The Cronbach’s alpha is α = .77, which adds to the validity of the scale. Factor loadings were the highest (.85) on ‘I think it is important to take part in a team project as part of my studies’. But were all significant on a .25 threshold.

24 3.2.4 Gender (moderator)

Gender was measured using a dummy variable (0 = male, 1 = female). 3.2.5 Impression management (mediator)

The BIMI was also used to measure impression management as a mediator variable. 3.2.6 Control variables

In this study education level, team work experience, age and gender have been included as control variables. Education level was measured using nine different categories of education, that were as follows: high school VMBO, high school Havo/VWO, MBO, HBO, first year university, second year university, Bachelor, Master, PhD. Team work experience was measured using five different categories, that were as follows: less than once a year, one to two times a year, three to four times a year, five to six times a year and more than six times a year. Age was an open ended question. Gender was measured using dummy variables (0= male, 1= female).

3.2.7 Means and standard deviations

Table 3. 1 Means and standard deviations (N=221) Mean SD Comm. Narcissism 3.95 .72 Agentic Narcissism 3.93 .78 Narcissism 3.94 .61 Comm. IM 3.49 .71 Agentic IM 3.27 .56 IM 3.38 .50 Team attitude 3.49 .64

25 4.0 Results

4.1 Pearson correlation matrix

The Pearson correlation matrix shows the strength of the linear relationship between two variables (Cohen, 1988). Table 4.1 shows several significant correlations when using p < .01 as a threshold. A positive correlation means that if the value of the one variable increases, the value of the other variable increases as well. A negative correlation means that if the value of one variable increases, the value of the other variable decreases and vice versa.

Hypothesis 1 expected a negative relationship between agentic and communal narcissism. However, a significant positive relationship was found between agentic narcissism and communal narcissism (r=.21, n=213, p=.00). Showing that if agentic narcissism increases by one, communal narcissism increases by .21. Therefore this hypothesis cannot be accepted. Hypothesis 2 stated that the relationship between narcissism and attitude towards team based work would be negative. The relationship appeared to be negative, but not significant (r=-.03, n=213, p=.74). Therefore hypothesis 2 can also not be accepted. Hypothesis 3a expected narcissism to be positively related to impression management. Narcissism was indeed found positively related to impression management, and the relationship was significant (r=.36, n=217, p=.00). Therefore hypothesis 3a can be accepted. Hypothesis 3b expected a positive relationship between agentic narcissism and agentic impression management. The relationship was indeed positive and significant (r=.52, n=217 p=.00). Hypothesis 3b can be accepted. Hypothesis 3c expected a positive relationship between communal narcissism and communal impression management. The relationship was positive, yet not significant (r=.13, n=213, p=.06). Therefore this hypothesis cannot be accepted. Hypothesis 4 expected that impression management would be positively related to team attitude. Indeed a positive relationship was found, however not significant (r=.06, n=213, p=.37). Therefore hypothesis 4 cannot be accepted. Hypothesis 5a expected a positive relationship between gender and team attitude in the way that women have a more negative attitude than men. The relationship was negative, yet not significant (r=-.01, n=213, p=.85).

Pearson correlation matrix

Table 4.1: Means, Standard deviations, Correlations

Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 1. Age 25,71 3,38 (-) 2. Gender ,73 ,44 *-,17 (-) 3. Education 6,67 1,9 **,39 -,05 (-) 4. Team experience 3,34 1,5 ,03 -,07 0 (-) 5. Agentic Narcissism 3,90 ,78 ,01 **- ,29 ,02 -,08 (.85) 6. Comm. Narcissism 3,95 ,72 -,06 0 -,02 ,02 **,21 (.71) 7. Narcissism total 3,94 ,61 -,03 **-,19 0 -,04 **,81 **,76 (.80) 8. Agentic IM 3,27 ,56 ,03 -,12 -,04 -,07 **,52 **,33 **,55 (.56) 9. Communal IM 3,49 ,71 ,08 ,07 ,05 ,01 -,06 ,13 ,05 **,21 (.57) 10. IM total 3,38 ,5 ,08 -,02 ,01 -,04 **,26 **,28 **,36 **,72 **,83 (.62) 11. Team attitude 3,49 ,64 ,11 -,01 ,04 ,06 ,01 -,05 -,03 -,04 ,12 ,06 (.76)

* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed) ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)

27 4.2 Regression analysis

Regression analysis was performed to test hypotheses 3a and 3b. Prior to the SPSS analysis, variables were computed into variable means. Control variables were included in the regression analysis to rule out any other explanations related to socio-demographic factors and to ensure the significance of the outcomes.

4.2.1 Narcissism and impression management

Regression analysis was performed on narcissism as the independent variable and impression management as the dependent variable. In the model control variables were taken into account, but showed no significant effect.

Table 4.2 Narcissism on impression management

Narcissism Beta Sig

Impression management .36 .00

Hypothesis 3a: narcissism is positively related to impression management

The adjusted R square was .123 meaning that narcissism explains 12,3% of the variance in impression management. When a millennial shows more signs of narcissism (both communal and agentic narcissism combined), he shows more signs of impression management (β = .36). Meaning that when the value of narcissism increases by one, the value of impression management increases by .36. Therefore hypothesis 3a is supported.

4.2.2 Agentic narcissism and agentic impression management

Then a regression analysis was performed on agentic narcissism as independent variable and agentic impression management as a dependent variable. Again, control variables showed no significant effect.

Table 4.3 Agentic narcissism on agentic impression management

Agentic narcissism Beta Sig

Agentic IM .52 .00

Hypothesis 3b: there is a positive relationship between agentic narcissism and agentic impression management

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A significant positive relationship was found between agentic narcissism and agentic impression management. The adjusted R square was .264 which means that agentic narcissism explains 26,4% of the variance in agentic impression management. A millennial that shows more signs of agentic narcissism also shows positive signs of agentic impression management (β = .52). As agentic narcissism increases by one, agentic IM increases by.52. Therefore hypothesis 3b is supported.

4.2.3 Moderation effect

The Process tool developed by Hayes (2012) is used in SPSS to run this analysis. Multiple relationships are measured in this analysis (1) narcissism level on impression management (2) gender on impression management (3) if the effect of narcissism on impression management changes if the gender changes. The same analysis is done for team attitude (4) narcissism levels on team attitude (5) gender on team attitude (6) if the effect of narcissism on team attitude changes if the gender changes. As well as for the third relationship in the model (7) the effect of impression management on team attitude (8) gender on team attitude (9) if the effect of impression management on team attitude changes if the gender changes. Meaning that if the added interaction term increases the explained variance, gender can be seen as a moderator between that particular relationship.

4.2.3.1 Narcissism and impression management

Hypothesis 5a: gender is negatively related to team attitude, in the way that females have a more negative attitude towards working in team than males

Hypothesis 5b: gender moderates the relationship between narcissism and impression management, such that it strengthens the relationship when the gender is male

The model shows that there is a positive relationship between narcissism and impression management (β = .35). Meaning that when a millennial shows more signs of narcissism he or she will also engage in impression management more. This relationship is significant (p = .00). There is also a positive relationship between gender and impression management (β = .41). That is, that females will engage more in impression management. However this is not significant (p = .42). A negative effect is shown (β = -.09) for the last facet of the analysis, the interaction effect. Meaning that the coherence between narcissism and impression management gets less strong when the gender is female. Although this effect is not significant (p = .46).

29 4.2.3.2 Narcissism and team attitude

Hypothesis 5c: gender moderates the relationship between narcissism and team attitude, such that it strengthens the relationship when the gender is male

The model shows that there is a negative relationship between narcissism and team attitude (β = -.14). Meaning that when a millennial shows more signs of narcissism he or she shows a stronger negative attitude towards teams. This relationship is however not significant (p = .36). There is also a negative relationship from gender on team attitude (β= .-1.83). Meaning that women show a more negative attitude towards team work. This relationship appears to be significant (p = .03). A positive effect is found (β = .14) for the interaction effect of this model. Meaning that the coherence between narcissism and team attitude gets stronger if the gender is female. However this effect is not significant (p = .45).

4.2.3.3 Impression management and team attitude

Hypothesis 5d: gender moderates the relationship between impression management and team attitude such that it strengthens the relationship when the gender is male

The model showed a negative relationship (β = -.17) between impression management and team attitude. Meaning that the more one engages in impression management the more negative their teamwork attitude. However this relationship was not significant (p = .38). The relationship between gender and team attitude was negative (β = -1.83) and significant (p=.03) Meaning that females have a more negative attitude towards teams than men. A positive relationship was found (β = .37) for the interaction effect of this model. Meaning that the coherence between impression management and team attitude gets stronger if the gender is female. However, this effect is not significant (p = .11).

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Table 4.8 Moderation Process analysis ( N= 221)

Coeff Sig Coeff Sign

Narcissism Gender

Impression management .35 .00 Narcissism -.19 .00

Narcissism

Team attitude -.14 .36 Impression

management .41 .42 Impression management

Team attitude -.17 .38 Team attitude -1.83 .03 Interaction effects with gender as a moderator variable

Narcissism Impression management -.09 .46 Narcissism Team attitude .14 .45 Impression management Team attitude .37 .11 4.2.4 Mediation effect

The Process tool developed by Hayes (2012) was also used to execute the mediation analysis in SPSS. In this analysis, the effect of narcissism on team attitude was tested, while adding the mediator variable impression management, to see if this will increase or decrease the relation. To test the mediation effect three relationships were measured (1) the relationship between narcissism and impression management (indirect effect) which has already been measured in hypothesis 3a (2) the relationship between impression management and team attitude (indirect effect) which has already been measured in hypothesis 4 and (3) the relationship between narcissism and team attitude (direct effect) which has already been measured in hypothesis 2a.

Hypothesis 6: Narcissism has an effect on the attitude millennials have towards team based work, directly and indirectly via impression management

The results of the analysis show that there is only a statistical significant between narcissism and impression management relationship (β = .35). The effect coefficient between narcissism and team attitude is negative, but not significant (β = -.14, n=215, p = .36). The effect

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coefficient between impression management and team attitude is positive, but also not significant (β = .37 , n=215, p = .11). Therefore one can conclude that there is no mediation effect between narcissism and team attitude.

32 5. Discussion

5.1 Main findings

The first hypothesis in this study was concerned with the relationship between two forms of narcissism: agentic and communal narcissism. The study predicted a negative relationship between communal and agentic narcissism. So that millennials who scored high on agentic narcissism would have a low score on communal narcissism and vice versa. This was hypothesized because agentic and communal narcissism are supposed to be two distinct constructs. Contrary to what was expected, the relationship was positive and significant. Gebauer et al (2012) theorize that agentic narcissists can be distinguished from communal narcissists, because they satisfy their self-motives of grandiosity, entitlement, power and esteem, in different domains. A central assumption of their model is however, that communal and agentic narcissism are two distinct facets of grandiose narcissism. Their study also showed a moderately positive relationship, between communal and agentic narcissism. Both communal and agentic forms of narcissism measure grandiose narcissism.

Surprisingly, the second hypotheses (2a + 2b) in the study did not show significant relationships. The hypotheses were concerned with narcissism and the attitude towards team based work. The study predicted that there would be a significant negative relationship between narcissism and attitude towards team based work. Higher scores on narcissism were predicted to be related to a more negative attitude towards team based work. However, the relationship was negative, it was not significant. It is possible that, although millennials have higher narcissism rates compared to other generations, these levels are too low to establish significant effects. This is however not likely, because narcissism did show significant effects to impression management. Another possibility is that generations are indeed becoming more individualistic, including the millennial generation, but that millennials are so used to working in teams, as Alsop (2008) stated, that they are good at it. And therefore they do not have a strong negative general attitude towards working in teams. Also, millennials know that teamwork is highly valued by companies. They know that learning these skills is essential for their future job. Narcissists want to impress. To impress their future employer, millennial need to like teamwork.

As expected, a significant positive relationship was found between narcissism and impression management. Bourdage, Wiltshire and Lee (2014) find a positive relationship in their research. However, they use a different measure for narcissism in their study (i.e. the honesty- humility trait measure vs. the NPI and CNI measures). Therefore it is interesting to

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see that a different measure for narcissism in a different sample, also provides a significant positive relationship.

5.2 Theoretical and practical implications

This research contributes to the literature about the millennial generation in the way that no research so far has examined the contradicting characteristics of narcissism and team play of the millennial generation, to see if there is a link between them. Literature that describes the millennial generation, does that by describing this generation by a lot of contradicting characteristics. This research focuses on two main characteristics, narcissism and team play. In this research no significant relationship between narcissism and the attitude towards team based work was found. Meaning that millennials narcissism levels do not influence their attitude towards team based work. Since organizations today work a lot with teams, it is important to know how the millennial generation feels about teamwork. A significant relationship was found between narcissism and impression management. Higher scores on trait narcissism lead to more impression management. This is in line with Bourdage, Wiltshire and Lee (2014), who also find a significant positive relationship between narcissism and impression management. However, the research of Bourdage, Wiltshire and Lee (2014) used a different measure for narcissism. Also, this research contrary to that of Bourdage, Wiltshire and Lee tried a sample of solely the millennial generation. Narcissism can be dangerous in the workplace. Employing individuals high on narcissism can have negative consequences for the employer, including counter productive work behaviours, risk taking and unethical decision making. If IM is effective, individuals high on narcissism could use IM to get ahead in the workplace. Especially in the job interview where IM behaviour is found to be very effective (Barrick et al., 2009). Millennials will not only soon dominate in number, they will also be in important positions at the top level of companies. This will lead to more individuals with narcissistic tendencies to enter the workplace and in top positions in the workplace. Future research should study this more comprehensively to confirm or refute this finding.

5.3 Limitations and strengths

This research has some limitations. For instance, the sample that was used in this research, was a convenience sample consisting of a personal network. Although this sampling technique is widely used, it is prone to bias. Nevertheless, the sample was quite heterogeneous in terms of education type and age within the generational boundaries. However the sample was not heterogeneous in terms of gender. The sample consisted for the larger part of women