The Dark Triad and Withdrawal Intentions: The Mediating Role of Work Alienation

This paper explores how the Dark Triad of Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism is related to withdrawal intentions of employees, with work alienation being one of the key mediating factors. The study is based on the Dark Factor of Personality (D Theory), and the authors examine how employees with manipulative, callous, and self-centered characters predispose them to dysfunctional workplaces, leading to disengagement and withdrawal behaviors. A quantitative time- lagged design was used to collect data on 392 employees in Iraq's private banking industry. According to the PLS-SEM analysis, Machiavellianism and narcissism had a direct and positive impact on withdrawal intentions, and the direct effect of psychopathy was surprisingly negative. The three Dark Triad traits were also found to be significant contributors to work alienation that, in turn, positively forecasted withdrawal intentions. It is worth noting that work alienation had a complete mediation between psychopathy and withdrawal intentions, as well as a partial mediation of Machiavellianism and narcissism. The results establish work alienation as a key explanatory factor between Dark Triad traits and unfavorable behavioral consequences. This research, in theory, expands the usage of D Theory in organizational behavior, especially in the emerging economies. In practice, it implies that banking organizations ought to include personality assessment and introduce specific interventions to promote employee engagement and decrease work alienation to address the adverse impact of Dark Triad traits.