Seductive Language for Narcissists in Job Postings
研究发现，使用描述“规则破坏者”的词汇（如强调创新、灵活性）的招聘广告更能吸引自恋型求职者，尤其是在高级会计职位中，且高增长、高创新企业更倾向使用此类语言。
Prior research indicates that narcissistic executives engage in earnings management and other negative organizational behaviors, and many studies ponder why firms hire such individuals, especially into corporate accounting positions. Utilizing a selection of terms from real-world job postings that we characterize as describing either a “Rule-Bender” or “Rule-Follower” candidate, we first conduct several validation studies which reveal that these terms vary predictably across types of job postings, that people generally agree with our categorization of these terms, and that Rule-Benders are viewed as possessing worse managerial skills but a higher proclivity for unethical behavior. We then demonstrate that narcissistic job seekers are more attracted to job postings that describe the ideal candidate using Rule-Bender terms for both general positions (Experiment 1) and senior accounting positions (Experiment 2). Finally, we examine firm characteristics that might lead professional recruiters to incorporate Rule-Bender language into Chief Accounting Officer job postings and find that Rule-Bender terms are preferred for higher-growth, higher-innovation firms (Experiment 3), and when more aggressive reporting would benefit the firm (Experiment 4). Our results suggest that recruiters’ language choices can attract Rule-Bending narcissists to firms, perhaps even in unintended circumstances. This paper was accepted by Ranjani Krishnan, accounting. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.05254 .