Managers' Narcissism and Investment in Research and Development

Narcissism, which is considered as a personality structure, can affect managers' judgments and decisions regarding the possibility of various outcomes. Narcissism among managers plays a vital role in carrying out activities related to corporate social responsibility and research and development costs. Based on this, the aim of the current research is to relate managers' narcissism with research and development costs based on the moderating role of corporate social responsibility performance. In this research, two measures of managers' cash rewards and the size of managers' signatures have been used to measure managers' narcissism. In terms of purpose, the research is applied and correlational. In this regard, 132 companies were selected as sample member companies that were active in the Tehran Stock Exchange during 2019-2020. The research data was collected from the real financial statements of the companies through the Kodal website and compiled using Excel software. The hypothesis testing method is multivariate regression using Image J and Eviuse 12 software. The findings showed that managers' cash bonus and the size of managers' signatures have no significant relationship with research and development costs. The company's social responsibility performance has a positive and significant relationship with research and development costs. The performance of social responsibility of the company does not have a moderating role on the relationship between managers' cash rewards and the size of managers' signatures with research and development costs. The results of this research add to the development of the literature related to managers' narcissism and research and development costs.