Study identifies a 1629 Batavia merchant as history's earliest known 'corporate psychopath'

According to a study by Dr. Clive Boddy of Anglia Ruskin University, Jeronimus Cornelisz, a merchant for the Dutch East India Company, displayed all 10 core traits of corporate psychopathy.

Dr. Clive Boddy, an associate professor of management at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) in England, argued in a study published in the Asian Journal of Business Ethics that Jeronimus Cornelisz, a merchant for the Dutch East India Company, was the earliest known recorded "corporate psychopath."

The Batavia, carrying Cornelisz, ran aground on reefs off Western Australia in 1629. When senior officers sailed to what is now Jakarta to seek help, Cornelisz was left in charge of around 200 people stranded on uninhabited islands. Under his leadership, around 100 people, including women and children, were killed on the grounds that food and water had to be preserved.

Batavia enkazından çıkarılan gövde kerestelerine yakından bakış

Boddy said the study was the first to assess Cornelisz's behavior using a recognized corporate psychopathy framework. The study found that Cornelisz displayed all 10 core traits, including using his charm to gain trust, surrounding himself with loyal supporters, eliminating potential rivals and creating an atmosphere of fear.

"The same tactics we see in toxic workplaces today also appear in this case from 1629," Boddy said. Recalling that another group under the leadership of Wiebbe Hayes survived under the same conditions by finding freshwater wells, Boddy said, "While one group prospered, the other was driven toward murder and abuse."

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