Introduction

Homo Economicus, The ‘rational economic human’ so beloved by neo-classical economists has sometimes been thought of as an ‘imaginary’ being because of the over-riding role of non-rational, altruistic decision making and of emotions in decision making (Henrich et al. 2001; Pearson 2000). However, this view of practical non-existence has been challenged by the realisation that unemotional and entirely self-interested people do exist in the form of psychopaths (Clarke 2005; Boddy 2005; Stout 2005).

An aim of this paper is thus to examine whether a ‘rational economic human’ exists and if so to identify who they might be in terms of personality and ethical characteristics and what types of workplace their presence generates. For example, suggestions have been made that that the affective deficit of psychopathy could be associated with an insensitivity to unfairness and may contribute to a selfish but rational decision to accept unfair offers (Osumi and Ohira 2010). On the other hand, non-psychopaths reject unfair offers for emotional reasons. In other words, psychopaths, un-swayed by emotional considerations, make rational, decisions in their own favour (Osumi and Ohira 2010).

Further support for the non-emotional and rationality of psychopaths is that they make utilitarian choices because of their lowered empathy for others (Takamatsu 2018). Any actual Homo Economicus, as a purely rational being without compassion or care for others, must therefore be a psychopath (Pirson 2018a).

This paper discusses examples of rational economic humanity, as found in case studies in Japan and elsewhere. The relevance of findings is then discussed in terms of the threat this implies to global business ethics and sustainability. The brain deficits of psychopaths are then discussed in relation to the areas of the brain within the limbic system that are involved in emotional processing. Psychopaths and leadership are then deliberated together with what the implications of the existence of corporate psychopaths are for business ethics, integrity and corporate culture. Firstly, research from case studies among the socio-economic elite are described below.

Primary Psychopathy Among the Socio-economic Elite

An example of research supporting the viewpoint that psychopaths are the only rational humans and because of this that they tend to get to the top, is that research among people from the wealthiest areas of Tokyo revealed individuals who were only concerned with self-interest and completely disregarded the welfare of other people (Yamagishi et al. 2014). These people scored highly enough on a measure of primary psychopathy to be identified as primary psychopaths. Primary psychopathy entails the embodiment of the core characteristics of psychopathy but not necessarily the secondary characteristics which are associated with impulsivity, violence and overtly anti-social behaviour.

Psychopathy predicts self-serving behaviour (Barelds et al. 2018) and Yamagishi found his sample of primary psychopaths to be individualistic, exploitative and willing to manipulate others (Yamagishi et al. 2014). Yamagishi described them as highly intelligent noncooperators, and as prototypical members of the social and economic elite. Other research in the UK and USA has also identified individual members of the social and economic elite such as Robert and Ghislaine Maxwell, Albert Dunlap, Bernie Ebbers, Ken Lay and Bernie Madoff as being highly psychopathic (Boddy 2016b, Boddy 2018a, Boddy 2015b, Boddy 2023a).

The Implications of Psychopathy at the Top

An academic who is a risk analysis expert studied papers on the behaviour of psychopaths in the corporate sector, e.g., (Boddy 2006, 2011b; Cohan 2012), hereafter called corporate psychopaths, and came to the conclusion that because of their qualities and ability to ascend to leadership positions, they represent the greatest threat to business ethics globally (Marshall et al. 2013, 2014). Furthermore, other risk analysts estimate that there are substantial long term risks to society and to humanity’s future trajectory from malevolent people like psychopaths (Althaus and Baumann 2020) and management researchers concur with this viewpoint (Boddy 2023b; Boddy et al. 2022). Additionally, philosophers state that psychopaths are also a threat to the coherence of human community because their ruthlessness towards that community destroys the bonds of trust that tie the fabric of society together, while at the same time everyone is the worse for encountering them (Verene 2010).

Trust is important for number of reasons, one important one being that if the leaders of society are not trusted then the bonds that tie society together unravel and social and political unrest to the point of revolution can occur (Brinton 1965 (First edition, 1938)). This lack of trust in leadership is the case at the moment as several surveys in Australia, Canada and the USA state that there are declining levels of trust between employees and those that they work for (Connell et al. 2003). Additionally, survey data delineates declining levels of trust in both corporations and in markets themselves (Bonini et al. 2009) and in a Gallop poll of public opinion, only 15% of people rated the honesty and ethical standards of business leaders as “high” or “very high” (Martin 2011).

A brief review of the trust literature uncovers multiple other reasons why trust is important within organizations as well as in society. For example, trust in superiors affects the ability of workers to focus on work tasks and thus is also reported to influence productivity (Frazier et al. 2010; Frenkel and Orlitzky 2005). Workers may also feel more satisfied in their jobs if they perceive that they are being treated fairly (Janssen 2001). The quality of strategic decisions and strategic innovativeness are improved within a trusting atmosphere in organizations and in organizational relationships (Carmeli et al. 2012; Ellonen et al. 2008). Levels of employee burnout (feeling exhausted and ineffective) are also lower when workers trust their supervisors and managers (Lambert et al. 2012).

Trust is also important because employees feel more commitment to their organization when their managers are trusted and those employees are less likely to leave a trusted organization (Connell et al. 2003; Cunningham and MacGregor 2000). Thus trust effects employee well-being (Kelloway et al. 2012), their commitment to the organization (Kim et al. 2009) their ability to focus on work tasks (Lance et al. 2010) and the absence of anti-social behavior in the workplace (Thau et al. 2007). These are all additional reasons why trust in management is important for an organization to have.

At a societal level, trust is important because the leaders of a society can ultimately only continue in their leadership positions while those below them trust them to some extent. When this trust dips below a certain threshold then social unrest can occur until trust is restored. Therefore, trust in the political system is reported to be a cornerstone of democracy and declining trust in politics is of concern to politicians and scholars (van der Meer 2010).

A rejoinder to the declining levels of trust and business ethics has been that political leaders have called for the re-establishment of trust in organizations and researchers have called for the screening out of aberrant personalities, bad leaders and corporate psychopaths in the workplace through careful applicant screening and job candidate selection processes (Babiak and Hare 2006; Pech and Slade 2007; Allio 2007; Boddy 2011a). These calls to screen out untrustworthy leaders can also be interpreted as appeals for ethical and trustworthy leaders to be appointed. Correspondingly, business ethicists have concluded that a much greater emphasis on ethics and integrity at the leadership level is needed to combat corruption and poor governance around the world (WorldEthicsForum 2006). Leaders who care for more than just profit and financial advantage have been called for (Bruni 2021; Keir 2016; Pirson et al. 2021).

The threat to ethical business standards arises because of the non-emotional and entirely rational functioning of the psychopathic brain and its self-oriented nature. Furthermore, the combination of psychopathy and psychopathic behaviour manifested as bullying and abuse (Valentine et al. 2018) can have a contagion effect whereby unethical situations are unrecognised in the workplace, ethical values are espoused but not employed and bullying and other deviant behaviour spreads through the workplace via copying behaviour (Valentine et al. 2017; Spencer and Wargo 2010).

The non-emotional psychopathic manager creates, via their cold bullying and calculated abuse, an emotionally turbulent workplace (Boulter and Boddy 2021) and an extreme environment (Boddy et al. 2015). In this turbulent environment moral and ethical standards decline as subordinates adopt the behaviour and attitudes displayed by their leaders, as happened in the case of Enron which is discussed below.

This un-emotionality may also be a reason for corporate psychopath’s ability to gain leadership positions because in posts where cool-headed, rational and authoritative characteristics are deemed desirable, then the non-emotional psychopath may look ideal (Howe et al. 2014) particularly when these attributes are associated with high intelligence (Silverio et al. 2023). In workplaces characterised by there being an emotionally turbulent maelstrom of employees with difficult affective feelings for colleagues to cope with, only the rational, cold psychopath may stand out as being apparently sensible (Boulter and Boddy 2021). Therefore, a superior looking downwards at the chaos, may chose the originator of the chaos, the psychopath, to sort it out and lead the group forwards. Thus, the rational, emotionally indifferent psychopaths may get chosen for leadership. Research by three researchers supports this viewpoint because they find that it is the rationality, the cool-headedness and the calmness of psychopaths that makes them appealing to HR selection committees (Tudosoiu et al. 2019). They can also appear to be charming and even beguiling, with an unperturbed and apparently guiltless personality (Smith 1985) and this also helps them get ahead.

Not entirely unexpectedly, some 40% of one sample of HR practitioners reported that they do worry about appointing the psychopathic to roles in their companies and one way they try to avoid this is to undertake thorough background checks to spot irregularities and falsifications in CV’s (Tudosoiu et al. 2019). MBA’s claimed as earned by psychopathic business leaders can turn out to be bogus, falsely claimed and entirely unwarranted (Boddy et al. 2015).

However, psychopaths are experts at impression management, and being free of the minor neuroses and emotional personality quirks and awkwardness that many others have, they thus appear to be polished, self-possessed and even superior to others (Cleckley 1941/1988). Conversely, they are able to follow their materialistic, financial and power desires with ruthless determination, unhindered by any sense of regret, remorse or empathy (Verene 2010).

A good example of this ruthless, self-interested and rational behaviour by executives who held psychopathic traits is that exhibited by the three senior executives at Enron as the share price collapsed after suspicions of fraud were raised (Boddy 2015b). Enron has been described as having been psychopathically pursuing profit with no concern for any suffering caused in doing this (Pirson 2018a). Enron went bankrupt in December 2001 after losing money for years and finally declaring losses of $1.2b in an off-balance sheet equity fund. As this happened objectors and whistle-blowers were persecuted or forced out of their positions and, in the face of this mistreatment, few internal or external accountants, auditors, or analysts raised suspicions concerning Enron’s inflated revenues while internal whistle-blowers were easily reassigned and silenced (Boddy 2020).

As an entity, Enron was manipulative and untrustworthy, creating illusory revenues and profits. Ken Lay, (the CEO) encouraged employees to think that the share price was buoyant while simultaneously selling (2001) millions of dollars of his own shares in Enron. Lay had also previously cashed in $123.4 m in stock options in 2000. The scale of deception at Enron was so great and so stage managed that it fooled investment analysts for years (Boddy 2020). Its top three executives were all nominated as being highly psychopathic including Jeffrey Skilling (Pirson 2018a; Langbert 2010) and Ken Lay (Boddy 2015b).

Psychopaths, Emotions and the Human Brain

Blair and colleagues, and Kiehl, and many others have studied the psychopathic brain extensively and a recurring finding is that in response to emotional stimuli, the areas of the brain that normally process emotions are un-activated in psychopathic brains, with the rational parts of the brain being activated instead (Blair et al. 2005; Blair 2001; Ciaramelli et al. 2007; Wahlund and Kristiansson 2009; Kiehl et al. 2006). This has led to the development of people with expertise in identifying psychopathic brains from brain scans (Fallon 2014). For example, Fallon was a neuroscientist who identified his own brain scan as that of a typically psychopathic brain. His autobiography makes interesting reading.

The brain activity of psychopaths is atypical, aberrant and non-emotional relative to the non-psychopathic (Poeppl et al. 2018; Kiehl et al. 2004, 2001). This emotional poverty means that psychopaths can only understand emotions at an intellectual level and that have no emotional empathy with other people, meaning that they are unrestrained in their ruthless exploitation of others. As a result they have no conscience, remorse or care for other people and see them as objects to be used for the benefit of the psychopath (Stout 2005).

The lack of emotion, shame, guilt or sympathy felt by the psychopath means that ruthless actions towards others are feasible and psychopaths are not affected by seeing the emotional turbulence and distress such behaviour may cause (McIlwain et al. 2012). Therefore psychopaths do not take into account the perspectives of others when making moral decisions and they are not emotionally involved in or distressed by such decision making and show a fundamental lack of concern for any harm caused towards others (McIlwain et al. 2012).

Although free of emotions and the constraints of conscience to which emotions subject us to, the psychopath is largely invisible to those who do not know them well and this allows them to manipulate others with relative impunity (Verene 2010). They can pursue their ends with none of the distractions of feelings, moral motivations, moral obligations or concerns about good and evil (Verene 2010). Primary psychopathy with its unemotional characteristics and callousness is thus associated with attaining career, educational, and general success in life from the individual psychopath’s point of view (Silverio et al. 2023).

Successful psychopaths have been defined as being those who avoid incarceration and may work in white collar jobs (Furnham 2010; Levenson 1993; Mullins-Sweatt et al. 2010) including in finance. There has been evidence of unethical outcomes associated with their presence (Smith and Lilienfeld 2013) and these may include employees engaging in counterproductive work behaviour including sabotage (Boddy 2014) psychopaths generating abusive supervision (Hurst et al. 2017) psychopathic bullying (Valentine et al. 2017) and other types of workplace malfeasance (Smith and Lilienfeld 2013).

For example, leading psychopathic financiers like Bernie Madoff (Stone 2018; Crego and Widiger 2022; Boddy 2023a) were successful in becoming the head of the Nasdaq stock exchange and sitting on the boards of major Wall Street finance companies and having Penthouses, summer houses, yachts and holiday homes. However, this ‘success” was not enjoyed by the traumatised and suicidal victims of the Ponzi scheme that Madoff masterminded (Glodstein et al. 2010).

Psychopathy and Leadership

Some psychopaths are attracted to power, money and control and thus they congregate within the types of organisations which can offer these to those who ascend to leadership. This includes business organisations and even among students, those in business disciplines are more psychopathic, on average, than other students are (Litten et al. 2020; Wilson and McCarthy 2011) and the study of dark traits like psychopathy can offer incremental insights into attaining leadership (Paleczek et al. 2018). Corresponding with this, psychopathic traits, (especially the trait of fearless dominance), are positively and moderately associated with people holding leadership and management positions (Lilienfeld et al. 2014) and psychopathy is found to predict workplace success in attaining senior positions (Pavlić and Međedović, 2019).

Psychopathic political and organisational leaders may hold other personality traits besides psychopathy, such as high levels of self-control, which help them ascend to leadership (Palmen et al. 2018, 2019, 2021). They are often promoted and rarely challenged within organisations (Pech and Slade 2007) because the climate of fear they produce discourages challenges to their power and authority (Boddy 2021b, 2017a). Thus senior leaders have been found to score highly on measures of psychopathy in politics (Boddy 2021a), not-for-profit organisations (Boddy 2017c) and a variety of for-profit organisations (Boddy 2018b, Boddy 2015b, Babiak et al. 2010, Boddy et al. 2022).

The psychopathic may be adept at becoming CEOs and this success has led to some commentators reporting that some psychopaths may make great CEO’s (Bercovici 2011). However, this viewpoint is uncommon and misinformed because the available evidence suggests otherwise. What is known from research is that the personalities and psychopathic characteristics of CEOs are highly effective predictors of scandal (Van Scotter and Roglio 2018) and CEO psychopaths have destructive effects on the organisations they run and the employees within those organisations (Boddy 2018b, Boddy 2015a). Decisions taken by such leaders may be oriented towards the short-term and neglectful of longer term sustainability (Boddy and Baxter 2021).

From the point of view of the colleagues, employers and societies which are associated with the psychopath, this success is experienced as failure because corporate psychopaths bully others (Boddy 2011a; Boddy and Taplin 2017; Valentine et al. 2017, 2018), destroy organisations from within (Boddy 2011c, 2021b), damage the mental health and well-being of colleagues (Boddy et al. 2020; Hurst et al. 2017) and generate emotional disturbances in the workplace (Boulter and Boddy 2021), creating legal threats to the companies that employ psychopathic leaders (Sheehy et al. 2021).

Corporate Psychopaths, Business Ethics and Integrity

Psychopaths in the workplace have long been characterised as unethical actors (Boddy 2009) and research finds that all types of morality are jeopardised in the psychopathic (Glenn et al. 2009) and that they do make unethical decisions (Stevens et al. 2011). Psychopaths are less likely to recognise an ethical workplace problem (Valentine et al. 2017) and there has been found to be a significant influence of psychopathy over a range of ethically relevant business decisions, and a lack of moral awareness among the psychopathic (Watson et al. 2017).

As corporate psychopaths are good at getting to the top of organisations it is insightful to examine the integrity of the decisions they may make when they are there. Findings include that psychopaths are less honest and more willing to exploit others (Ashton et al. 2000), have a negative influence on employees and society (Boddy 2017b), correlate negatively with multiple measures of integrity (Connelly et al. 2006), are compromised in all types of morality (Glenn et al. 2009) and have no sense of social responsibility (Nolimal and Nolimal 2013). They are associated with fraud and attempted fraud and with white collar crime in general (Alalehto and Azarian 2018; Henriques 2012; Jeppesen et al. 2016; Perri and Brody 2012; Perri and Lichtenwald 2007; Ramamoorti 2008; Zona et al. 2013).

Unsurprisingly, researchers conclude that people with elevated levels of psychopathy will be less aware of morally relevant elements at work and less likely to seek morally correct decisions (Watson et al. 2017). Furthermore, analysis shows that managers who score higher on the dark personality scales including psychopathy, are less concerned about environmental and social responsibility issues (Pelster and Schaltegger 2022). Psychopaths are also predisposed to be environmentally offending by dumping toxic waste illegally (Ray and Jones 2011) and less connected with corporate social responsibility (Boddy et al. 2010).

In politics the more intelligent psychopaths may be ambitious and driven enough to gain positions as heads of state and of countries; such people would be more likely to initiate nuclear war than other leaders may be and thus poise a threat to planetary existence (Bierer 1977). Bierer writes that society’s love of individual freedom should not be allowed to let unscrupulous people destroy the planet.

Corporate Psychopaths and Corporate Culture

With its opportunities to offer power and resources to risk-taking employees the contemporary corporation has been described as a magnet for corporate psychopaths who then climb into leadership positions within those corporations (Wexler 2008). Leaders set the moral climate and ethical tone at the top of organisations and when these leaders are psychopathic then that tone is ethically degraded. Wexler compellingly describes how corporate psychopaths may rise to prominence in organisations and engage in self-entitled, scandalous behaviour once there and which they present as legitimate forms of organisational behaviour (Wexler 2008). Unethical types of business-as-usual procedures thus become embedded into the fabric and processes of the organisation.

This idea of corporate systemic psychopathy is not new and was explored as early as 1985 (Daneke 1985). As the system becomes effected the organisational culture thus becomes unethical from top to bottom as it arguably was at Enron, discussed above. Psychopathic contagion occurs generating a climate of fear (Boddy 2021b, 2017a) and the organisation becomes callous and unable to enact compassion towards it employees, suppliers or other stakeholders (Pirson 2018a). Thus, increasingly corporate executives realise that the corporations they work for are more and more acting as conscienceless monstrosities (Wexler 2008). These “sociopathic collectives” have exogenously oriented outlooks which are callous, lacking in conscience and prone to corruption (Yolles 2009).

Commentators who desire a more humanistic type of leadership call for a move away from the pandemic of psychopathic individualism (Pirson 2018a; Pirson et al. 2021). Thus, calls for corporate psychopaths to be screened out of leadership positions have therefore been made (Boddy 2016b, 2016a; Zohny et al. 2018; Althaus and Baumann 2020; Taylor 2021; Pirson 2018b) which potentially brings up multiple ethical issues in relation to employing and not employing psychopaths (Steverson 2020). An alternative to screening psychopaths out would be to actively seek caring leaders. Such leaders could contribute to generating a culture of care and concern where individuals and collectives within organizations and society are valued and looked after humanely and with compassion (Hicks 2016; Keir and Zongrang 2018; Tirmizi et al. 2023; Pirson 2017, 2018b).

Conclusions

Brain scans and experimental research reveal that perhaps alone among humanity, psychopaths react entirely rationally to emotional stimulus. The concept of ‘Homo Economicus’ is therefore probably only embodied in the person of the psychopath. However, this rational intellect is not employed for the betterment of organisations, colleagues and society but is rather devoted to self-advancement, egoism, and self-enrichment. Untruthfulness, deceit and abusiveness are adopted as strategies and are tactically used by psychopaths as they confuse, scare, con, fool, defraud and outmanoeuvre other people.

This behaviour creates an emotionally turbulent workplace which results in declining ethical standards and is associated with lower corporate social responsibility and lower environmental sustainability. Implications include that organisational and global sustainability, as well as the future of humanity are jeopardised by this because of the short-term and self-absorbed orientation of these people together with their propensity to occupy organisational and societal leadership positions. Selecting people for leadership who always present themselves as cool, calm and collected may not be the optimal way forward for organizations and society as this gives the coldly psychopathic an advantage.