Narcissism, career choices and burnout in students of premier B-school in India

Abstract

This paper explores the relationships between subclinical narcissism in MBA students and recent graduates of a premier B-school in India to their career choices as well as the burnout experienced by them. Certain sectors like Consulting, FMCG Marketing are generalized to have individuals who are higher on sub-clinical narcissism and face a lesser-degree of burnout. Given this background, in this paper, the authors have tried to analyze the relationship between the prevalence of narcissistic traits and career choices that B-school students make. The authors have additionally, attempted to explore the prevalence of self-assessed burnout from their jobs/works among MBA graduates as well. This is done to see if MBA graduates are mentally faring well or not in their choice of career. Furthermore, there is a possibility that MBA graduates would be swayed by the peer discourse regarding choice of a career and hence, efforts have been made to isolate the native choice of career by asking about their satisfaction levels, any career jumps made and the self-assessed burnout levels. This paper investigates the hypotheses stated above by estimating traits of narcissism, levels of emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment and depersonalization in MBA students of first year (n = 94), second year (n =117 ) and alumni (n = 64) at IIM Ahmedabad. The study found significant differences in narcissistic traits across buckets of gender of the respondent, phase of the MBA process, Industry Aspirations, Educational Background, and income bracket of the respondent. The study also found correlations between the four factors being measured, which has been tabulated and discussed. The implications and limitations of the study have also been identified and listed for further research.