Employee performance and abusive supervision: The role of supervisor over‐attributions

Abstract

Summary To understand the relationship between employee performance and abusive reactions from supervisors, we examine the role of supervisors' attributions about employees' performance. Drawing on the fundamental attribution error, we argue that supervisors over‐attribute lower levels of performance to employees' internal factors (i.e., conscientiousness), which then triggers higher levels of abusive supervision. In Study 1, we collected data from 189 supervisor–employee dyads. The results indicated that lower levels of supervisor‐rated employee performance related to supervisor biased attributions to employee conscientiousness, which in turn resulted in employee‐rated abusive supervision. In Study 2, we combined a recall task with a vignette design to replicate and extend our findings. We demonstrated that after adjusting for the baseline level of employee conscientiousness, supervisors over‐attributed poor performance to employee conscientiousness and then engaged in higher levels of abusive behaviors. Further, consistent with premises of fundamental attribution error, we found that in the absence of information about who was at fault for poor performance, supervisors over‐attributed poor performance to internal factors (employee) as compared to external factors (software malfunction). Taken together, our findings demonstrate that biased attributions about employee conscientiousness help explain the relationship between employee performance and abusive supervision.

Abusive supervision: a systematic literature review

“…We could locate 31 papers that have used experimental designs alone (e.g., Gonzalez-Morales et al 2018 ; Tu et al 2018 ) or with other research designs (e.g., Walter et al 2015 ; Shao et al 2018 ; Chen et al 2021 ; Lyubykh et al 2022 ). Experiments in abusive supervision have their challenges.…”

Leadership Styles, High-Involvement Human Resource Management Practices, and Individual Employee Performance in Small and Medium Enterprises in the Digital Era

“…Thus, leadership in serving, sharing, and empowerment can relate to HRMP in the scope of HRP, training, compensation, and OSH. Rotundo and Sackett, 2002, explained that employee performance is a controlled behavior to support organizational goals (Lyubykh et al 2022).…”

“…However, the results of this study contradict the results of studies conducted by authors that have explained the interaction between LSs and HIHRMPs in improving IEP. They are (Zhao et al 2020;Lyubykh et al 2022;Dela Crus and Cabaluna 2022;Muma et al 2018;Gomathy et al 2022;Al Qudah et al 2014;Rahayu et al 2019;Pramono and Prahiawan 2022;Handayani and Kasidin 2022;Arwab et al 2022;Tumi et al 2021;Abba 2018;Ramli 2020;Pratibha 2022;Jean et al 2017;Min et al 2019;Nkrumah et al 2021;Ekowati 2019).…”

Potential buffering effect of being a right-hand subordinate on the influence of abusive supervision

“…Organizational level variables such as highly centralized structures with predominately top-down communication (Aryee et al, 2008), supervisors' personal traits and abilities such as high levels of Machiavellianism (Kiewitz et al, 2012), high levels of psychological entitlement (Eissa and Lester, 2022), and low levels of emotional intelligence (Ding et al, 2012), and the well-being of the supervisors themselves (DeWall et al, 2007;Kahn-Greene et al, 2006;Von Hippel and Gonsalkorale, 2005) have been proposed and studied as answers to this question. Meanwhile, recent research has revealed that subordinates' negative behaviors such as counter-productive workplace behavior may also trigger abusive supervision (Lyubykh et al, 2022).…”