Measuring in the Dark? A Discussion of and Recommendations for Measuring Narcissism in Micro and Macro Research

Research on the impact of narcissism in organizations has grown over the years in both the micro and macro literature. Micro-level research often examines the impact of employee narcissism on workplace behavior, and macro-level research often examines the impact of executive narcissism on leader behaviors, firm strategy, and firm performance. In this opinion piece, we first discuss different approaches that have been used to measure narcissism, highlighting some of their respective advantages and disadvantages. Second, we discuss the need to take stock of these different measurement approaches and devote more attention to validating them and examining their comparability. Third, we provide an agenda for future research in these areas.