How does the dark triad affect team effectiveness?

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the Dark Triad (Narcissism, Psychopathy and Machiavellianism) and its affect on Team Effectiveness and the possible mediation of Intragroup conflict types: Emotional person conflict, Emotional task conflict, Cognitive person conflict and Cognitive task conflict. A quantitative approach was made with a questionnaire containing 42 questions relating to the Dark Triad, Intragroup conflict types and Team Effectiveness (Job Satisfaction, Learning and Team Performance). The questionnaire was distributed through email to 44 teams in different organizations of varying sizes. This study contributes to the understanding of the Dark Triads affect on Team Effectiveness, and gives more insight into the Intragroup conflict types. More specifically, we have brought evidence that Machiavellianism is directly and indirectly negatively related to Job Satisfaction through its mitigation of negative Emotional person conflict construct, and that Narcissism is indirectly negatively related to general Team Effectiveness through its mitigation of negative Emotional person conflict and Cognitive person conflict construct.