Abusive Supervision and Employee Emotional Exhaustion

Abstract

The authors examined the relationship between subordinates' core self-evaluations and supervisors' abusive supervision. Furthermore, they examined whether subordinates' perceived coworker support and subordinates' susceptibility to emotional contagion moderated the relationship between supervisors' abusive supervision and subordinates' emotional exhaustion. They analyzed data from 290 subordinates who had immediate supervisors using hierarchal multiple regression. Results show that core self-evaluations were negatively related to abusive supervision, whereas abusive supervision was positively related to emotional exhaustion. Both perceived coworker support and susceptibility to emotional contagion moderated the relationship between abusive supervision and emotional exhaustion. It is surprising that the moderating effect of perceived coworker support showed an unexpected pattern such that a stronger relationship between abusive supervision and emotional exhaustion existed when coworker social support was high. The authors conclude with a discussion of these findings.

The effect of coworker knowledge sharing on performance and its boundary conditions: An interactional perspective.

“…Consistent with previous findings (e.g., Wu & Hu, 2009), employees who perceive high coworker knowledge sharing may not have a positive psychological experience but instead may face dissonance in the context of highly abusive supervision. Since employees receive different treatments from the key actors, they may deplete their self-resources, which in turn may limit the benefits of coworker knowledge sharing.…”

“…For example, the positive relationship between abusive supervision and employee deviance was stronger when distributive justice was high rather than when it was low (Thau & Mitchell, 2010). Wu and Hu (2009) also found that the relationship between abusive supervision and emotional exhaustion was strengthened when coworker social support was high rather than when it was low. Applying this argument to our study, although coworker knowledge sharing may provide valuable resources, employees who face inconsistent information (high abusive supervision in this study) may find it difficult to get the full benefit of coworker knowledge sharing, due to their lack of self-resources.…”

“…Since employees receive different treatments from the key actors, they may deplete their self-resources, which in turn may limit the benefits of coworker knowledge sharing. Moreover, abusive supervision may foster a climate in which abused employees have difficulty trusting their coworkers or valuing their support, relative to nonabused employees (Tepper et al, 2004;Wu & Hu, 2009). Although we did not directly evaluate focal employees' attribution, abused employees may view coworker knowledge sharing behavior with skepticism and judge it as self-serving or as impression management, which in turn may attenuate the effect of coworker knowledge sharing on task performance.…”

“…In particular, certain leader behaviors may preclude employees benefitting from their coworkers. Previous studies have shown that the benefits of coworker support are diminished in the presence of destructive leader behavior such as abusive supervision (Tepper, Duffy, Hoobler, & Ensley, 2004;Wu & Hu, 2009). Since abusive supervision is viewed as a strong situational factor, investigating the interactions of coworker knowledge sharing and abusive supervision can be beneficial to understanding the complexity of knowledge sharing and task performance, and more broadly, the dynamics of key actors in the workplace.…”

“…In addition, the workplace leader-one of the major sources of social influence-can influence the employee's attitudes and behaviors (Shanock & Eisenberger, 2006). Considering their higher hierarchical positions and power, leaders are likely to affect the extent of coworker influence (Wu & Hu, 2009). In particular, certain leader behaviors may preclude employees benefitting from their coworkers.…”