Journal of Applied Psychology 2025

Chief executive officer (CEO) Machiavellianism and executive pay.

Tessa Recendes¹; Aaron Hill²; Federico Aime³; Jason W. Ridge⁴; Oleg V. Petrenko⁵

¹ State University of Management · ² University of Florida · ³ Oklahoma State University · ⁴ Walmart (United States) · ⁵ Michael Baker International (United States)

Abstract

Integrating theory and evidence about Machiavellianism (Mach) into executive pay-setting research, we theorize about how chief executive officers (CEOs) higher in Mach may be both more motivated to initiate negotiations and more effective in utilizing social influence tactics in the pay-setting process, thus positively relating to their own pay outcomes. Specifically, we first theorize that CEO Mach positively associates with a CEO's total pay and severance pay. Moreover, because paying top management team (TMT) members more is also in CEOs' interests-such as to help build TMT loyalty and cooperation, aid hiring, and ease retention while also narrowing the CEO-TMT pay differential to thus provide an impetus for a CEO pay raise-we argue that CEO Mach positively relates to TMT pay as well. Using a longitudinal sample of S&P 500 firms and clinical psychologists trained to assess CEO Mach from publicly available data, we find evidence supporting our theorizing. (PsycInfo Database Record

DOI

10.1037/apl0001290

Sources

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