An uncertainty management theory on the effects of abusive supervision

Abstract

Purpose The vast majority of research on traditional leadership focuses on effective and positive leadership behavior. However, scholars have begun to pay attention to the impact of negative leadership behavior on employees and the organization. Hence, the main purpose is to examine the effects of abusive supervision. While the literature does not examine the time future orientation of the effects of abusive supervision, the purpose of this paper is to fill up this gap and examine the moderating role of future orientation. Design/methodology/approach A total of 584 valid questionnaires were collected from respondents aged between 21 and 30 years old and analyzed using the hierarchical regression and structural equation modeling method. Findings The main results show that abusive supervision positively affects counterproductive work behavior and future orientation positively moderates both the relationship between abusive supervision and originality behavior and the relationship between abusive supervision and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Originality/value This study demonstrates the moderating roles of future orientation in the effects of abusive supervision, and thus deepens the understanding of the moderating effect. It departs from the prior works and presents a more detailed examination examines the distinct dimensions of personality traits. It makes three main theoretical contributions. First, it introduces uncertainty management theory as a means to interpret the effects of abusive supervision. Second, it contributes to the literature on abusive supervision. Third, it does not lead to discovery as an OCB and originality, conclusions which differ from the results suggested in past literature.

Abusive supervision and knowledge sharing: moderating roles of Islamic work ethic and learning goal orientation

“…Given the prevalence of abusive supervision in contemporary workplaces, with a growing body of evidence on its harmful impact on employees and organizations alike (Mackey et al , 2013; Tepper, 2000; Wang et al , 2012), scholars have stressed the need to examine factors that moderate that impact (see, e.g. Jiang and Gu, 2016; Yang et al , 2019). Building on the research that linked abusive supervision with a range of counterproductive and deviant behaviors in organizations (Wang et al , 2012; Yang et al , 2019), the present study examined its association with a positive work behavior (i.e.…”

“…Abusive supervision is prevalent in organizations worldwide (Aryee et al , 2008). It significantly lowers employee discretionary work behaviors, such as organizational citizenship behavior (Lyu et al , 2016), and increases employee turnover and deviant work behavior (Agarwal, 2019; Aryee et al , 2008; Han et al , 2016; Javed et al , 2019; Pradhan and Jena, 2017; Yang et al , 2019). Abusive supervision has also been associated with eliciting other forms of negative attitudes and behaviors in employees such as psychological distress and emotional exhaustion (Martinko et al , 2013; Tepper, 2000; Peltokorpi, 2019).…”

Examining the within‐person effects of abusive supervision on multifoci deviance: Ethical climate as a moderator

“…Because of supervisors’ hierarchical status, higher power, and greater resources, retaliating with deviant behaviors directly targeting the perpetrating supervisor might be risky given that such behavior could lead to counterretaliation, lost rewards, punishment, disciplinary actions, and even dismissal (Al‐Hawari et al., 2020; Park et al., 2019). Thus, employees target less powerful and less threatening targets who may not have the supervisors’ power to retaliate (Pradhan et al., 2020; Yang et al., 2019).…”

Can subordinate voice prevail with abusive supervision?

“…Over the past two decades, a host of studies examined the effects of abusive supervision on various employee and organisational outcomes (Mackey et al, 2015). Subordinate level outcomes include increased stress (Agarwal, 2019), counterproductive behaviour (Yang et al, 2019), knowledge hiding (Khalid et al, 2018) and reduced organisational citizenship behaviours (Zhang et al, 2019) and creativity (Jiang and Gu, 2016), among others. The present study focuses on the link between abusive supervision and employee voice; another important individual level outcome.…”