STREET DOGS: Best to avoid the psychos
Does it mean psychopaths are bad for business? Maybe not
We might have long suspected that psychopaths congregate in business schools; that the more empathy-challenged among us tend to end up in senior management roles. But until now, no one has answered the all-important question of how that might affect one’s portfolio.Now a study by researchers at the University of Leicester and Coventry University has led to the conclusion that "managerial psychopathic behaviour is an ominous sign of shareholder wealth destruction".The study looked at whether it was possible to forecast one-year-ahead returns of individual companies based on the observed "psychopathic" characteristics of their top management team. Among the key findings are "that language characteristic of psychopaths present in annual report narratives, questionable integrity, excessive risk-taking and failure to contribute to charitable undertakings tend to reduce future shareholder wealth".Does it mean psychopaths are bad for business? Maybe not. Nor does it mean bad returns are ne...
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