Machiavellianism and Business Education

Abstract

The Mach IV test was administered to 206 undergraduate university students to compare business with nonbusiness students and to compare business students majoring in different fields, such as Marketing, Human Resource Management, and Accounting and Finance. Analysis partially supported the common stereotype that business students, and marketing students in particular, are more Machiavellian than are nonbusiness students.

The development of narcissistic admiration and machiavellianism in early adulthood.

“…Partly supporting our hypotheses about majoring in economics, we found selection but not socialization effects for studying economics. The selection effects explain why previous studies found higher levels of Mach in economics students (McLean & Jones, 1992;Skinner, 1981; but see also Li-Ping Tang et al, 2008) and are in accordance with the low communal and high agentic motivation of people high in Mach and their motivation to achieve financial success (McHoskey, 1999).…”

“…We focused on the relationship between studying economics and the development of narcissistic admiration and Mach because several studies on university education entertain the idea that tertiary business and economics education can influence students’ narcissistic and antisocial tendencies (e.g., Etzioni, 2015; Westerman, Bergman, Bergman, & Daly, 2012). This idea is based on (a) studies finding economics university students to be higher in narcissism (Westerman et al, 2012) and Mach (McLean & Jones, 1992; Skinner, 1981; but see also Li-Ping Tang, Chen, & Sutarso, 2008) than students in other majors and (b) studies suggesting that studying economics at university fosters immoral tendencies (for a review, see Etzioni, 2015). For example, students who attended a class on game theory became more cynical and less honest—which is highly consistent with Mach—over the course of one semester than students who attended an astronomy class (Frank, Gilovich, & Regan, 1993).…”

Machiavellianism and Corporate Ethical Values as Determinants of Accountants' Ethical Decision Making

“…They may also utilize induce guilt feeling to other people [28]. Earlier literature suggests that business students tend to be more Machiavellian than non-business students [29]. The requirement is not without any reason.…”