Received: 7 October 2020 | Revised: 5 January 2021 | Accepted: 16 January 2021 DOI: 10.1111/jopy.12619 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Employee narcissism and promotability prospects Barbara Nevicka1 | Constantine Sedikides2 1Department of Work and Organizational Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Abstract Amsterdam, The Netherlands Introduction: Narcissistic individuals often rise to positions of influence, but how 2Center for Research on Self and Identity, so? Upward mobility in formal hierarchies is frequently contingent upon supervisory School of Psychology, University of evaluations. We examined the relation between employee narcissism and supervi- Southampton, Southampton, UK sor promotability ratings, testing predictions from the display of power perspective Correspondence (narcissism will positively predict promotability due to higher perceived power) and Barbara Nevicka, Work and Organizational impression management perspective (narcissism will positively predict promotabil- Psychology, University of Amsterdam, P.O. Box 15919, 1001 NK, Amsterdam, The ity due to self- promotion). Netherlands. Method: In two multisource studies involving employees and their supervisors from Email:
[email protected] diverse organizations (S1: Nemployees = 166; Nsupervisors = 93; S2: Nemployees = 128; Nsupervisors = 85), we measured employee narcissism (S1, S2), employee sense of power, employee impression management tactics toward the supervisor (S2), and em- ployee promotability as rated by supervisors (S1–S2). Further, in an experiment (S3: N = 181), we tested the causal effect of employee sense of power on promotability. Results: Results favored the display of power perspective. Although narcissism pre- dicted both higher self-promotion toward the supervisor and greater sense of power, it was the latter that explained the positive relation between employee narcissism and promotability ratings. Conclusion: Employees high on narcissism act as if they have more power in or- ganizations, and thus, demonstrate behavior that would be expected in higher level positions.