The impact of corporate psychopaths on corporate reputation and marketing

This paper briefly discusses why Corporate Psychopaths, as one particularly pernicious type of dysfunctional leader, should be of interest to marketers. One reason is because of the negative impact of Corporate Psychopaths on some of the antecedents of Corporate Reputation. The paper discusses how Corporate Psychopaths through their direct action and via their example to others, undermine some of the key drivers of corporate reputation such as good communications, job satisfaction and corporate social responsibility. The paper discusses past research which found that in the presence of managers who are Corporate Psychopaths, a corporation's levels of perceived corporate social responsibility, good communications and commitment to employees go down. Simultaneously, levels of conflict and organisational constraints go up. The negative impact of the presence of Corporate Psychopaths in an organisation is discussed and the implications for marketers are drawn out. The paper finishes by hypothesising that the presence of Corporate Psychopaths will probably affect some of the other areas of marketing that influence corporate reputation as well. This includes levels of marketing service provision and delivery, marketing orientation, job related stress, marketing ethics and management credibility and trustworthiness. The paper calls for further research into how Corporate Psychopaths influence these important areas of marketing management.