Narcissistic CEOs and Organizations: The Case of CEO Ben van Beurden and the Organization Royal Dutch Shell

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Narcissistic CEOs and Organizations: The Case of CEO Ben van Beurden

and the Organization Royal Dutch Shell

By Laura Even

University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business

Research Paper for Pre-MSc IB&M (EBS014A10)

June, 2020

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Abstract

This paper aims to analyse if Ben van Beurden is a narcissistic CEO and Shell a narcissistic organization by establishing an understanding of the term narcissist and its impact on organizations. Additionally, DSM-IV narcissism identification criteria will be used and applied through literature. A research plan got established by using a narcissistic personality questionnaire and a questionnaire to measure organizational narcissism. Both questionnaires should be applied to the CEO and Shells employees to diagnose the degree of narcissism in the CEO and organization. The research plan was not executed but van Beurden and Shell possess according to the literature multiple narcissistic traits making them a low degree narcissistic CEO and organization.

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction and Central Research Question ... 4

Introduction ... 4

Central Research Question ... 5

Research Questions ... 5

Methods ... 6

2. Literature Review ... 7

Theoretical Concepts ... 7

Narcissism ... 7

Characteristics, symptoms, and types of narcissism ... 8

Narcissistic leaders ... 8

Narcissistic organizations ... 9

Influence of a narcissistic leader. ... 10

Short-term and long-term effects. ... 11

Identifying, diagnosing and measuring narcissistic leaders and narcissistic organizations ... 12

Case information ... 13

Ben van Beurden a narcissistic CEO? ... 13

Royal Dutch Shell a narcissistic company? ... 15

Preliminary Conclusion. ... 17

3. Hypotheses ... 19

4. Research Plan ... 22

Sample ... 22

Measurement and measures ... 22

Research Design ... 23

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5. Analysis and discussion ... 25

6. Conclusions and Recommendations ... 26

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1. Introduction and Central Research Question Introduction

Business environments are developing and changing constantly. Therefore, the interest in leadership styles and their adapting behaviour in such changing environments get followed increasingly. Thus, the focuses increased on the behaviour aspects leaders are possessing to measure their influence on the organization (Higgs, 2009).

Mintzberg (2002) explains that we live in a society that endorses selfishness and greed in organizations to boost performances and that characteristics like generosity are not as treasured. Those narcissistic characteristics have been increasingly found in politicians and CEOs and described as “destructive” (Campbell, Hoffman and Marchisio, 2011).

Narcissists are drawn to leadership positions and often even wanted by the organizations due to their power enhancing characteristics, however; their behaviour can have several negative consequences on an organization like demonstrated by past failure by Lehman Brothers (Stein, 2013).

According to Higgs (2009) there are studies relating to “good” and “bad” leadership styles, however, far less research is done on the flawed leadership side. As Higgs (2009) implies, however, most research is done on the behaviour of white, male, American CEOs, also called as the “heroic” leadership theory. It is easier to point out “bad” leadership by pointing out personal flaws in connection with performance shortages. By describing bad leadership in terms of toxic, negative and abusive, interest grew in the connection between narcissism and leadership (Higgs, 2009).

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The oil industry is an essential part of today’s economy and often gets described as egoistic due to the field it is active in and the power position those companies operate in. Oil companies, alongside Alcohol and Tobacco companies often deal with negative industry reputation (Greene, 2018). Currently the company is under public attack regarding their company bailout during the COVID-19 crisis. The pandemic made oil giants suffer under losses, even after OPEC cut oil supplies. Oil and gas sectors seem globally most active in lobbying government for financial support, and the UK and the European Union have been criticized for their financial support regarding Shell (Farand, 2020). Therefore, this case has been chosen for this analysis.

Central Research Question

The purpose of this research is to give an understanding on what a narcissist is and narcissistic behaviour in organizations and the impact of those attributes on organizational strategy. Furthermore, narcissistic characteristics of organizations will be explained. By analysing narcissism in an organizational context, especially in leadership behaviour, the advantages and disadvantages of such behaviour will be pointed out an explained. This will contribute to understand why companies prefer or avoid leaders with those attributes or why narcissists are often found in leadership positions. As already mentioned, the CEO van Beurden and the case company Shell will be analysed with regard to the overall term narcissism. Using this information to formulate the research question, it will be derived as followed:

Is the CEO Ben van Beurden a narcissist and the organization Royal Dutch Shell itself a narcissistic organization?

In the following research questions will be presented that will help frame this research and support answering the central research question.

Research Questions

Through theory the first 1-7 research question will provide basic understanding of the term narcissist in not only a leadership position but also an organization. Additionally, different types and symptoms of narcissism will be presented. This will help to develop an understanding of the dynamic between CEO and organization and how they are affecting each other.

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1. What is narcissism?

2. What are the characteristics or symptoms, and types of narcissism? 3. What is a narcissistic leader?

4. What is a narcissistic organization?

5. How does a narcissistic leader influence the organization (process)? 6. What are the short and long-term effects of narcissistic leadership?

7. How can narcissistic leaders and organization be identified and measured?

8. Is Ben van Beurden a narcissistic CEO?

9. Is the Royal Dutch Shell a narcissistic company?

Methods

To answer the central research question and the other research questions, the researcher will present a theoretical framework based on literature review. The literature review will provide information and preliminary conclusions. This will be done in the chapter 2 by using existing information and literature which will be taken from peer-reviewed academic journals and books. The last research questions about the CEO van Beurden and the company Shell will be answered through academic sources, as well as reliable newspaper articles and similar sources.

Chapter 4 in this research paper will provide and present a detailed research plan for quantitative research to help testing the stated hypotheses which will be developed and presented in chapter 3 of this research.

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2. Literature Review

In the following the theoretical background will be presented to provide information regarding the theoretical concepts and the case.

Theoretical Concepts

The following theoretical concepts and information should help answering the first seven research questions and give an overall overview about narcissism and its impact on organizations.

Narcissism. Narcissism gets categorized in different clinical and psychiatric literature

as a narcissism personality disorder (NPD), referring in general to someone that is grandiose, lacks empathy and possesses a desire for admiration (Campbell et al., 2011).

According to Sedikides et al. (2004) narcissism can be pictured three dimensional consisting out of the self, interpersonal relationships and self-regulatory strategies. The self consists out of the sense of entitlement, the will to power and high esteem. The interpersonal relationships describe the barely existing emotional connection and understanding for other people and thereof the result of more superficial engagement with others which nevertheless can range between exciting and manipulative. Thirdly, the self-regulatory strategies describe the behaviour process to seek out opportunities for attention, admiration and claiming credit (Sedikides et al., 2004).

Campbell et al., (2011) describes the DSM-IV listing 9 specific symptoms of narcissism. To get diagnosed with a NPD one has to possess 5 out of those 9 traits and additionally the individual must cause distress.

However, narcissism can be clinical or sub-clinical. Individuals can possess multiple traits out of the DSM-IV factors and be considered a narcissist, however, if the individuals are operating in normal relationships and do not cause distress they can be categorized as sub-clinical. Fulfilling multiple traits of the DSM-IV criteria and causing distress can be categorized as clinical narcissism which would be classified as a NPD.

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Characteristics, symptoms, and types of narcissism. As mentioned above DSM-IV

consists out of 9 traits to identify a narcissist. The American Psychiatric Association (2000) describes those traits as:

1. “An exaggerated sense of self

2. Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success and power

3. Believes he is “special” and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

4. Requires excessive admiration 5. Has a sense of entitlement

6. Selfishly takes advantage of others to achieve his own ends 7. Lacks empathy

8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him

9. Shows arrogant, haughty, patronizing, or contemptuous behaviours or attitudes” (American Psychiatric Association, 2000)

Furthermore, Miller and Campbell (2008) are differentiating between two types: a grandiose narcissist and a vulnerable one. The first gets categorized as aggressive, unwilling to take criticism and is exploitive; this is the type of narcissist one can picture while thinking of a typical narcissist. While the later gets categorized as depressed and anxious, low self-esteem and thinks the world is stacked against them. While talking about types of narcissists in companies the focus should be on the grandiose narcissist, since he has a bigger presence in organizations when discussing leadership (Campbell et al., 2011). It is further concluded that a narcissist when being successful is more likely to feel positive and experience high self-esteem (Sedikides, et all, 2004), while they are feeling more aggressive and anxiety ridden when unsuccessful (Bushman and Baumeister, 1998).

Narcissistic leaders. According to Mintzberg (2002) companies like to envision that

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(2002) argues that real leadership is more connected and engaged but according to Higgs (2009) the public likes to envision a heroic leader instead when thinking about CEOs.

Mintzberg (2002) divides management styles into the engaging management and the heroic one. While the engaging managers are more about implementation, seeing the company as an interacting network and working together, the heroic managers embody importance, hierarchical division and bold strategies. While heroic leaders embrace changes, many other resist those implementations.

While Mintzberg (2002) identifies those two managers, the heroic manager embodies more characteristics of a narcissistic leader.

Those leaders might exploit their employees more by abusing their power to reinforce their self-image and increase their personal performance, they might purposely inflict damage on others, they might over-exercise to satisfy personal needs, and they could be breaking rules to serve their own purposes (Asforth, 1994; Kellerman, 2005; Tepper 2000). Emmons (1997) summarizes common traits of a narcissistic leader in a concept which identifies the four major key characteristics: exploitativeness, leadership and authority, superiority and arrogance, and self-absorption.

Narcissistic organizations. Duchon and Burns (2008) believe that organizations

express what they represent in its core through behaviour and policies. They further claim that entire organizations can be similarly narcissistic as people, by becoming self-absorbed and focusing on ones identity as an institution. As a narcissist an organization can show features as entitlement, denial and really high or really low self-esteem. It is a collective narcissistic mind-set that is embedded in the organizations culture. Differentiating between narcissism in a company or a person is that an organization will deny and develop plausible justifications through annual reports, public relations and other spokesperson. Duchon and Burns (2008) argue further that a narcissistic organization will exploit not only recourses but also people to continue their success through a lack of empathy and self-entitlement.

Godkin and Allcorn (2009) argue that claiming an organization suffers from a disorder might be challenging, however, an organizations culture and life are identifiable representatives. Therefore, Godkin and Allcorn (2009) developed a model similar to the DSM-IV to identify an arrogant organizational disorder, which they set equal to arrogant narcissism.

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1. “Exceptional pride is held for the organization, its accomplishments and great hope is held for future successes. Leaders see few limitations regarding what may be accomplished and are not inhibited as to how to accomplish goals.

2. Feelings of exceptional entitlement support exploitativeness of others, customers and the public interest.

3. When excessive pride is threatened and the pursuit of goals frustrated envy and rage arise. The leader or management group becomes hyperactive and willing to expend limitless time and energy to succeed and win out over rivals including aggression often tinged with sadism and revenge.

4. There is a history of firings and demotions and of non-supporters and resistors being banished to internal organizational Siberias. Resistance is a threat and will not be tolerated.

5. Management by intimidation is common.

6. Fear suppresses accurate reality testing and creativity.

7. Filtered information flows alter organizational reality and magical thinking is present. Operating problems it may be seemingly thought will pass without taking action to resolve them. It is too dangerous to confront management behavior that contributes to problem generation and perpetuation.

8. Others are frequently blamed and scapegoated.

9. The sense of mood within the organization is unpredictable where one day a great success is celebrated and a week later there exists despair over not achieving the smallest of goals.

10. Many in the organization are alienated from the organization and its leadership group preferring to hide out in their foxholes (offices and cubicles).

11. In and out group dynamics are polarized and there is considerable evidence of distressing and destructive internal competition and open warfare.” (Godkin and Allcorn, 2009: 45-46)

To define an arrogant organizational disorder the adjusted DSM-IV framework can be used.

Influence of a narcissistic leader. As discussed, narcissists like to find themselves in

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2011). A narcissistic CEO will most likely plan and enact more changes more rapidly, undertake risky decisions and actions engage in acts of grandiose and attract attention through implementations (Benson and Hogan, 2008). As further described by Campbell et al. (2009) narcissistic leaders are charismatic and create a vision that influences the organization. Those social skills are envisioned as equal to great leadership by organizations. Through their visionary approach narcissistic leaders can influence a company through trust, job satisfaction and psychological wellbeing. Through their more risk taking approach, narcissistic leaders can lead the organizations to new ways which makes their benefit to their organization enormous. Furthermore, during crisis times such a leader can bring additional energy in the organizational climate. Due to their thriving for greatness, they have a high need for achievement and organizational outcome, and will encourage the organization to follow their vision (Higgs, 2009).

All in all it can be said that narcissistic leaders bring energy and charisma that attracts other employees. Through their fast change willingness and vision they can influence the organization. Additionally, by putting narcissists in a power position they are given the tools to shape company culture and openly admit their values which will be associated with the organization.

Short-term and long-term effects. According to Chatterjee and Hambrick (2007),

narcissistic CEOs can influence organizations outside of the people that directly surround them instead it can have huge impacts on the organization itself. This is mostly due to their bold strategic action which tends to deliver fluctuating performances. Chatterje and Hambrick (2007) identify two outcomes. Firstly, due to the high self-image of a narcissist it is not possible for him to see everything objective, since he believes that he can change everything upwards. Due to the need of narcissists to align actions with their motives they will perceive them accordingly. Secondly, narcissists tend to view their personal needs above other things and might perceive the organization as a “tool” to achieve those. Narcissists therefore are positive related with strategic dynamism and prefer that over strategic stability, going for the actions that will attract the most attention. Due to their fluctuate tendencies a company under narcissistic leadership will either have huge success or huge loss. Other strategies might include aggressive international expansion and constant changing strategic directions.

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to evaluate and develop strategies. Due to the fact that leaders create work climates, narcissistic leaders can end up creating a work environment which creates constant competition within the organization, which has a negative long-lasting impact.

On the other hand Maccoby (2000) argues while there are no noticeable negative impacts of narcissism in short-term until mid-term, such behaviour can never be fully sustainable in the long run. Because narcissistic leaders fail to create an environment that is needed for sustainable performances.

Even though narcissistic leaders tend to act more dramatic instead of choosing stable strategies, the organizational performance has been neither better nor worse compared to competitors in the long-run (Chatterjee and Hambrick, 2007).

Stein (2013) argues that a narcissistic leader might help organizations in the short-to medium run but they might become a liability during difficult times due to their failure of objectivity and their need for public attention.

Identifying, diagnosing and measuring narcissistic leaders and narcissistic organizations. However, there are ways to identify a narcissist and a narcissistic organization.

To diagnose someone with NPD the DSM-IV criteria are used, however, they also apply to a sub-clinical narcissist. To get diagnosed with NPD 5 out of the 9 traits have to match in addition to the overall fact that the individual causes distress. However, the framework can also be used to assess and evaluate traits for sub-clinical narcissists even if they don’t fulfil the NPD criteria. Additionally, the self-report narcissistic personality questionnaire (NPQ) by Motter (2009) can be used to measure the degree of narcissism. It consists out of 102 different items which are based on DSM-IV criteria.

To identify arrogant organizational disorder the adjusted criteria by Godkin and Allcorn (2009) can help diagnose organizations. The disorder occurs when 7 out of the 11 traits match.

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Case information

After having established a theoretical framework and understanding the CEO van Beurden and the organization Shell will be further analysed. The theory will be systematically applied using the DSM-IV criteria for the CEO and Shell.

Ben van Beurden a narcissistic CEO? This question will be answered by using the

DSM-IV criteria established by the American Psychiatric Association (2000) and applying them to Van Beurden.

1. Grandiose sense of self-importance

Van Beurden is the CEO of Shell since January 2014. As many other CEOs and leaders he cares about the public image of his company and gave in 2019 a lecture in which he underlined the importance to eat seasonal and local food, and regularly recycle to support environmental goals (Monbiot, 2019).

Van Beurden leads a company that is well known for their environmental scandals. By holding speeches about recycling and environmental goals he delivers the impression that he is a suitable person of knowledge in multiple fields and takes himself highly important.

2. Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success or power

In 2017 van Beurden and his company came under investigation for fraud and corruption. Allegedly Shell and an Italian company bought an exclusive oil licence in Nigeria where money did not go to the state but instead to Nigeria’s former oil minister (George, 2017). Currently van Beurden is experiencing additional heat by letting debt increase far beyond his targets and is cutting back on investments due to failed projects. He proudly announced that Shell “could do it all” in 2019 (Blas and Hurst, 2020). However, the current COVID-19 crisis is hitting the oil industry hard. For years Shell has been taken pride in the fact that the company never had to cut its dividends since World War 2, however, van Beurden announced that this will change by reducing its quarterly dividend in response to the crisis (Clowes et al., 2020).

3. Belief in “special” or unique status (including fixation on associating with high-status people or institutions)

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environmental regulations Shell received financial aid from the European Union and the UK without such requirements (Farand, 2020).

4. Requirement for excessive admiration

Regarding excessive admiration from Van Beurdens’ side there was not much to find. However, it can be claimed that his speeches in different areas, addressing different shareholders can be a sign for his need to be liked. This can be supported by the speech he hold for advising people to be more environmental friendly, even though he works for a huge environment polluting company (Monbiot, 2019). Additionally, he addressed the tech industry directly advising them to not take an arrogance approach since it would go against the public liking (Gilblom, 2018).

5. Unreasonable sense and expectations of entitlement

Even though Shell is partly a Dutch company, they are not paying tax on profits in the Netherlands. Shell uses the Dutch tax system to get around paying taxes, while other companies that are not multinationals have to do so (DutchNews, 2020).

6. Interpersonal exploitativeness, 7. Lack of empathy

Regarding the factors interpersonal exploitativeness and lack of empathy there is some overlapping evidence. In an open letter against the CEO he got called “narcissistic, paranoid, and psychopathic” which is a reaction to his speech in which van Beurden openly admitted that he does not see a change in the oil industry regarding the supply and demand when asked about the climate change. In this letter it gets pointed out that van Beurden justifies the oil industry and its doing by saying that the positive outweighs the negative. He says that providing cheap energy to the poor outweighs the risk that those same people are facing through the energy industry (Carrington, 2015).

8. Envy

This research could not find claims for or against the fact that van Beurden envies. 9. Arrogant behaviors or attitudes

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past oil industries are not looked up to by society and that other industries should not follow that path (Gilblom, 2018). By making that statement Van Beurden oposses arrogance openly.

Royal Dutch Shell a narcissistic company? To analyse if Shell can be considered a

narcissistic company the adjusted DSM-IV criteria by Godkin and Allcorn (2009) for organizations will be used which can help to identify an arrogant organizational disorder.

1. Exceptional pride is held for the organization, its accomplishments and great hope is held for future successes. Leaders see few limitations regarding what may be accomplished and are not inhibited as to how to accomplish goals.

As already mentioned Shell took much pride in the fact that the company did not cut its dividends since the Second World War (Clowes et al., 2020). Since the beginning of the year Shell has been under pressure and needed to re-evaluate its debt reduction targets, however, Van Beurden kept reassuring that the dividends will not change (Keown, 2020). Nevertheless, Shell was not able to keep their expectations and has been the first major oil company to cut their dividends (Raval, 2020).

2. Feelings of exceptional entitlement support exploitativeness of others, customers and the public interest.

Regarding their exploitativeness towards the public interest, many operations of Shell get boycotted and protested against resulting in declining profits due to its decision making processes that go against public benefits and concerns (Moodie, 2016). In the open letter that has been addressed to van Beurden the author is claiming that Shell is a narcissistic company since it is so wrapped in the current status of its oil business that it established that it cannot focus or even think of building a new one that would provide more for the common good (Carrington, 2015). However, the company claims to be interested in having a positive effect on the natural ecosystem, funding money for that purpose and maintaining good relationships with four environmental partners. Nevertheless the company withheld its support for legally binding contracts regarding reductions of EU’s emissions and it’s publicly announcements regarding its transitions to a low-carbon future is barely visible in Shells annual report (Monbiot, 2019).

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Shell is operating in Nigeria and is in conflict with Ogoniland region since the 1990s and even quit the region in 1993. However, the conflict did not stop due to Shells future plans to use the region again. Evidence occurred stating that Shells contractors opened fire on the protestors and Shell repeatedly encouraging the Nigerian military to deal with the protestors. Additionally, Shell provided transport and paid these military commanders. Furthermore, reviews show that Shells had links to the infernal Nigerian security agency (Summers, 2017).

4. There is a history of firings and demotions and of non-supporters and resistors being banished to internal organizational Siberias. Resistance is a threat and will not be tolerated. And,

5. Management by intimidation is common.

To answer if Shell punishes resistors and if they use intimidation management the two questions have been fused. In 2019 in Pennsylvania, Shell workers have been required to attend President Donald Trump’s speech in their facility otherwise they would not be getting paid for the day. As the day was treated as a regular working day, employees were advised to attend otherwise they would not be getting their pay for those hours. Additionally, Shell set a statement that any kind of open disagreement during the event in form of protesting and yelling will not be tolerated (Stockler, 2019).

6. Fear suppresses accurate reality testing and creativity.

In 1995 there has been a fight between Greenpeace and Shell regarding one of their oil platforms in the North Sea. The oil platform was not operating anymore and Shell decided to dump the platform in the middle of the ocean, saying that it was ecologically equivalent to dissemble the oil platform on shore. Greenpeace conducted a counter study to the one Shell conducted concluding that dumping the oil platform at sea was ecologically way more dangerous and risky (Holzer, 2010).

7. Filtered information flows alter organizational reality and magical thinking is present. Operating problems it may be seemingly thought will pass without taking action to resolve them. It is too dangerous to confront management behavior that contributes to problem generation and perpetuation.

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underline the importance between employee and leader. Shell is doing so by using a supportive system that channels coaching (Thomas, 2016).

8. Others are frequently blamed and scapegoated.

While Shell frequently puts the blame for losses on micro environmental factors, evidence could not be found about internal blame pushing.

9. The sense of mood within the organization is unpredictable where one day a great success is celebrated and a week later there exists despair over not achieving the smallest of goals.

There was no information found regarding the internal unpredictable mood.

10. Many in the organization are alienated from the organization and its leadership group preferring to hide out in their foxholes (offices and cubicles).

There was no information found regarding employees feeling alienated by management. 11. In and out group dynamics are polarized and there is considerable evidence of

distressing and destructive internal competition and open warfare

As explained above Shell uses a leadership style that emphasizes connection and collaboration (Thomas, 2016).

Preliminary Conclusion. While it was not possible to find information on each trait,

enough has been found to make valuable preliminary conclusions. While van Beurden does not fulfil all DSM-IV criteria, he possesses enough narcissistic traits to associate him with such. The public receives him as charming, functioning and as someone having strong visions. Additionally, he engages in unethical behaviour, positions himself above the law and sets really high goals, which he cannot always keep. Those attributes based on the presented literature makes him a sub-clinical grandiose narcissist.

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3. Hypotheses

The following Hypotheses got developed and can be divided into two sets: one regarding van Beurden as CEO, and Shell as an organization.

In order to do the first set will be based on the DSM-IV criteria (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) and the second one based on the adapted criteria for organizations by Godkin and Allcorn (2009).

H10: Van Beurden has a grandiose sense of self-importance

H11: Van Beurden does not possess this characteristic

H20: Van Beurden has preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success or power

H30: Van Beurden has a belief in “special” or unique status

H40: Van Beurden has a requirement for excessive admiration

H50: Van Beurden has an unreasonable sense and expectations of entitlement

H60: Van Beurden engages in interpersonal exploitativeness

H70: Van Beurden lacks empathy

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H80: Van Beurden is envious

H90: Van Beurden has arrogant behaviors or attitudes

The second set will be as followed:

H100: Shell is full of pride and hope for the future

H101: Shell does not possess this characteristic

H110: Shell feels entitlement to exploit others

H120: Shell will put limitless effort in to succeed when pride is threatened

H130: Shell bans non-supporters within its organization

H140: Shell uses intimidation as a management style

H150: Shell uses fear to suppress accurate testing and creativity

H160: Shell uses filtered information to alter organizational reality and magical thinking is

present

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H170: Shell frequently blames and scapegoated others

H180: Shell has an organizational unpredictable mood change

H190: Shell has employees that feel alienated by management and hide in their offices

H200: Shell polarizes group dynamics and uses destructive internal competition

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4. Research Plan

A research plan will be presented in the following concerning exact details about the sample, measurements and the research design. The research plan will not be executed, however, the plan is developed under the assumption that both the CEO and the organization fully cooperate in the research and pay for it. The data collection will be done by a market research company.

Sample

In order to provide a sufficient sample to answer the central research question three groups are important to research.

First: the employees of Shell including some managers. They can give more insights about treatment and the relationship between leaders and employees at the company.

Second: Current managers should be evaluated separated as well. They provide a different point of view regarding the leader-employee relationship. Additionally, some insights regarding van Beurden will be researched.

Third: Van Beurden should be taken personally into the research.

In order to compare different groups, managers and other employees have to be from different departments: employees from the gas extraction facilities, the headquarters and the transportation department.

Shell has around 82,000 employees. However, by using quantitative data collection, 200 employees should be collected for group 1, 50 managers for group 2, and only van Beurden regarding group 3.

Measurement and measures

For this research in order to get as much data as possible, quantitative data has been selected. The questionnaires will be handed out to all the participants and is voluntary.

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Hamedoglu and Potas (2012) to measure organizational narcissism. Motter (2009) is based on the DSM-IV criteria and consists out of 102 questions and will be converted in to a likert scaling.

In order to measure organizational narcissism, the organizational narcissism scale (ONS) by Hamedoglu and Potas (2012) will be applied on the groups 1-3 and the scale will be implemented as a likert scaling. The ONS will be carried out first as a questionnaire to the participants asking them on a set of 35 given questions about their opinion of the organization. The answers will be later analysed to measure the degree of organizational narcissism applying them to the ONS.

Research Design

Since existing literature is used, the study is deductive. Additionally, it is a case study because this research is about the company Shell. The research is a quantitative data collection. Analysis

As the data is quantitative it will be considered descriptive statistics.

The Cronbach’s Alpha will be used to measure the reliability of the sub-scale to analyse the outcome of the NPQ. The sub-scales will be grouped according to the DSM-IV criteria. Participants will then be able to get categorized based on the degree of narcissism.

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TABLE 1

Overview of research activities

Who Group 1: Employees (200)

Group 2: Managers (50) Group 3: Ben van Beurden

Groups 1 & 2 have to be from the gas extraction facilities, the headquarter and the transportation department

How Group 1: NPQ questionnaire about van Beurden and ONS

questionnaire self-report

Group 2: NPQ questionnaire about van Beurden and ONS questionnaire self-report

Group 3: Self-report on NPQ, ONS questionnaire

Where Questionnaires will be handed out at work and conducted in a silent reserved room at the facilities

When Reaching target group and booking rooms: 1 week Handing out the questionnaires and collection: 2 week SPSS Analysis: 2 weeks

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5. Analysis and discussion

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6. Conclusions and Recommendations

The following provides conclusions based on the preliminary findings from the qualitative research and more conclusive findings from the quantitative research. However, since the research plan was not able to be executed, the latter is not possible. Additionally, a reflection will be presented to critically reflect on the strength and weaknesses of this research.

Conclusions

The central research question in this research was: “Is the CEO Ben van Beurden a narcissist and the organization Royal Dutch Shell itself a narcissistic organization?”

As shown in the preliminary findings, Ben van Beurden possesses multiple traits out of the 9 DSM-IV criteria. The first trait is possessed by having some evidence to address the grandiose sense, however not enough to fully state the full possession. The second trait is fulfilled as enough actions conducted by van Beurden to claim that he feels of having unlimited power. Van Beurden believes in his unique status and the status of his company however, not enough facts were presented to conclude a possession of this third trait. The fourth trait presented enough evidence to prove van Beurdens requirement for excessive admiration and can therefore, be classified as possessed. While there is evidence to support the fifth claim, not enough got found to claim that van Beurden has an unreasonable sense of entitlement. Regarding the 6th and 7th trait enough evidence has been presented to claim that van Beurden has a high degree of exploitativeness and lack of empathy. However, for the 8th trait no evidence has been found to claim he is envy as well as for the 9th trait of arrogant behavior. Therefore, van Beurden possesses 4 out of 9 traits, while for 3 not enough evidence was presented, and for 2 traits no supporting evidence has been found. Possessing 4 out of 9 degrees to this extend is making van Beurden a sub-clinical grandiose narcissist, meaning a low degree narcissist. However, he cannot be diagnosed with a NPD.

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not enough evidence was presented, and on the other 5 criteria no supporting evidence could be found. While Shell thereof cannot be diagnosed with an arrogant organizational disorder, the organization does fulfil many criteria, making it to a low degree narcissistic organization. However, while not fulfilling all criteria of the adapted DSM-IV model, this does not make Shell a “good” company. Similar to Van Beurden multiple sources claim the unethical actions against the general public and the perceived justification to do. While Shell internally might not be organizational narcissistic it does possess narcissistic traits that are publicly noticeable. In conclusion it can be said that van Beurden and Shell possess many narcissistic traits and can be therefore recognized as a lower degree narcissist and narcissistic organization based on the presented literature.

Recommendations

Conclusions were just made based on the presented literature; therefore, it is essential to recommend future research because the diagnosis is only a preliminary conclusion.

To further conduct this research it is important to execute the research plan that was established above. Only then literature and primary research can get combined to provide a sufficient final conclusion on the central research question. However, as preliminary concluded, van Beurden and Shell possess many narcissistic traits as shown in the literature. Even if Shell does not fulfil all traits and van Beurden cannot be diagnosed with a NPD, Shell can still be considered a narcissistic organization. For the future Shell should behave more ethical correct and implement honest sustainable goals that the organization will follow up on. Especially, during the current crisis Shell became vulnerable and depends on the government and the public.

Reflection

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each trait gets matched by van Beurden and Shell, the extent on which someone can possess narcissistic traits get highlighted and taken into consideration.

The biggest weakness is the lack of primary data because the research plan was not able to get executed. Hence, the preliminary conclusions drawn in this research paper were all based on the presented secondary literature. However, if the research plan would have been executed more accurate insights of the company could have been added and provided valuable conclusions. Additionally, many evidential data presented happened to be overlapping.

This research however, discussed the effects of CEOs on organizations and elaborates on that factor.

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