Teadusseminar "Benevolent Machiavellianism: A Study of the Nature of Prosocietal Political Skills in Organizations" (Petr Houdek)

Benevolent Machiavellianism: A Study of the Nature of Prosocietal Political Skills in Organizations

Petr Houdek (Prague University of Economics and Business)

Kaasautorid: Štěpán Bahník, Marek Vranka

Kolmapäeval, 4. detsembril 2024 kell 11.00-12.00  Delta ruum 1024 ja Zoom

Corporations cause significant social harm. However, these organizations also employ people who stand against their harmful doings, but to no avail. Our study aims to uncover why these individuals cannot change their organizations' detrimental impacts. We test whether prosocietal employees lack the political will and political skills, unlike self-centered or Machiavellian employees, and thus cannot obtain the power to change the organization for the better. We created a novel behavioral task in which a group of participants could withdraw funds from charities. Participants could also gain power and reduce or exacerbate the negative impact of their group. We found that participants with high political will, power motive, and preferring their and their group's gains invested more in power. Conversely, we found no evidence of an association between obtaining power and contributing to charities, high affiliation motive, or political skill. Thus, Malevolent Machiavellians prevailed, and the groups they controlled continued to harm. In the follow-up study, we found evidence that Benevolent Machiavellianism can be nudged by emphasizing the need to acquire power and by emphasizing the impending prosocietal costs. Our research shows a clear need to encourage prosocietal employees of harmful organizations to be proactive, think strategically about their actions, and provide them opportunities to reflect on and discuss these issues.