Individual Assignment
Integrative research project
Tutorial teacher: X. Liang
Date: June 28, 2021
Student: Kai Alscher
Student no: 2666708
Business challenge
My team and I worked on the business challenge: Dark side of entrepreneurs. This challenge
discussed how dark personality characteristic, such as narcissism and psychopathy are
influencing entrepreneurs and how that can influence themselves and people around them.
We decided to research whether entrepreneurial narcissism is negatively affecting the
willingness to work of potential employees. Effects of narcissistic character traits can range
from someone being more prune to gossip, to one showing more counterproductive behavior
(Lyons & Hughes, 2015; Mahmood et al., 2021). Since there are almost 582 million
entrepreneurs around the world and small businesses accounted for roughly 63,3% of all new
jobs in the USA (in-between 1992 to 2013) it becomes evident how entrepreneurs and small
businesses are a major part of today’s business world (Simovic, 2021). With millions of
people being employed in such a setting it is from great importance to conduct deeper
research into the negative sides and effects of entrepreneurship.
It is important from a societal stance since stressed and exhausted employees tend to suffer
from burnouts. In the USA 77% of employees indicated that they have felt burned out at
work and that 83% of fulltime professionals indicate that personal relationships are
negatively impacted by that (Fisher, 2020). Furthermore, the public health system and the
state are predisposed to provide support for members of society if they become unable to
work or are suffering from mental illnesses as for example depression. For businesses (either
small or big) it is important to understand how their employees may be affected by certain
character traits, because if (as in our research) the willingness to work of employees is low,
their organizational citizenship behavior decreases (Hayashi et al., 2011) which in turn
decreases effective organizational functioning and hence the whole organizations
performance (Organ, 1988).
Giving advice
Our team has been asked to take on the consultant role and to investigate the dark side of
entrepreneurs. We aimed for conducting a thorough and detailed research in order to provide
the business, which has tasked us, with excellent information regarding their lack of
knowledge about the topic. Based on this knowledge we aimed to provide the business with
concrete advice. Bonaccio& Dalal (2005) defined advice as “a recommendation, from the
advisor, favoring a particular decision” and providing the advised with clear guidance. Our
consultancy team tried to assist entrepreneurs showing narcissistic character traits in
recruiting and selecting the best fitting employees for their organizations. Hence, we
formulated clear recommendations for a certain course of action for our clients. These
recommendations will enable our clients to gain a deeper understanding of how their
character traits affect their workforce and their willingness to work. And what kind of
character traits as well as gender (e.g. Dominance/ Submissiveness) their potential employees
should possess to increase(sustain) an effective organizational functioning.
In order to provide our client with these recommendations our team took on the advisory role
of “the devil’s advocate” since there were some severe issues inherited by our clients, which
hindered their recruitment processes. Saxton (1995) describes devil advocates (also called
provocateurs) as someone who is challenging the existing views and believes, while asking
unanticipated and difficult questions. Our team decided on taking the devil’s advocate role
since we informed our client about their flaws, which they most likely did not want to hear
(Narcissists). We took it on us to measure and ask questions one might feel uncomfortable
answering (when it comes to for example submissiveness) and then reporting the negative
implications and results to our client.
Cultural dependence of your business challenge
Entrepreneurship differs across countries around the world. There is a Global
Entrepreneurship index (GEI) which is measuring the climate a country creates for the
development of businesses (Entrepreneurship & Business Statistics | GEDI, 2019). This
index involves local circumstances such as the ease of doing business or how much support
structures are implemented in the respective governmental or financial system. On this scale
the US scores the highest whereas there is a large gap to the bottom of the list (Chad) and it is
evident that there are huge gaps between entrepreneurship in different countries
(Entrepreneurship & Business Statistics | GEDI, 2019). Researchers have found that cultural
values effect the development of entrepreneurial behavior in society (Davidsson 1995, Thurik
& Dejardin 2011) and that the difference in cultural dimensions such as power distribution,
masculinity or individualism affect the way entrepreneurs conduct business. Especially
masculinity has been found to have a positive impact on entrepreneurship (Hofstede et al.
2004). Nonetheless, entrepreneurs have one major thing in common, they are human and
poses similar positive as well as negative personality traits. Hence employees in
organizations around the world have similar probabilities to suffer under dark personality
traits of entrepreneurs. And since entrepreneurs are not limited to a country, culture or
organization the challenge we worked on could be universally/ globally applied. Of course, it
has to be examined and slightly adapted to the local culture and climate.
Hofstede Cultural Dimensions- China, Netherlands and USA Screenshot from: https://www.hofstede-insights.com
For example, if you compare Netherlands and China, you see the difference of for example
individualism. China is a highly collectivist country, where personal relationships are highly
valued and are prevailing over task and company. Entrepreneurs are more inclined to care
about personal relationships and hence dark personality traits have the potential to do
interrupt business processes and organizational functioning than in the Netherlands. It would
be interesting if future studies use culture as a moderating variable to deeply analyze the
effect of culture on this business challenge
Team dynamics
We were a complete seven people team, and everyone was motivated to contribute to the
success of our research project. Our group worked very dynamically, and we were able to
meet all the deadlines. There was only one minor problem that occurred during the last 4
weeks. The problem our team ran into was that in the first week of the course one member of
the group and me were on a fieldtrip and not able to contribute to the team’s work. Because
of that the first buddy check had a rather poor result for the other person and me. With the
buddycheck system the other team members were able to express their legitimate
dissatisfaction. Luckily, there was good communication in our team and the problem could be
resolved without conflict to the extent that in the end the team mutually agreed to opt out of
the buddycheck system. From a helicopter perspective one might say that we “left our team
behind” and were not able to be part in an important stage of the group’s development the
forming stage in which roles are assigned and members get to know each other (Tuckman,
1965). This stage than further evolved in the storming phase (end of first week; beginning of
second week), in which conflict can arise due to different working styles and team members
having negative feeling since these are the ones, who are still hard working (Tuckman, 1965).
This is essentially what happened in our group as well, but due to good communication we
were able to resolve all problems. I learned two lessons for working in future teams; the first
would be to not miss out on any of the group’s essential development stages to maintain a
highly effective and maybe also fun working spirit in the team. And secondly, that good
communication is essential for problems to be resolved. It allows people to express their
perceptions, to voice out dissatisfaction and to ensure a mutual engagement to the team’s
task.
References:
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