Team abusive supervision and team behavioral resistance to change: The roles of distrust in the supervisor and perceived frequency of change

Abstract

SummaryWhy do teams exhibit behavioral resistance to change? It depends on the behavior of team supervisors who are in charge of change implementation. Drawing on social exchange theory and the norm of negative reciprocity, we expect that teams reciprocate team abusive supervision through behavioral resistance to change and that this relationship is explained by team distrust in the supervisor and contingent upon team perceived frequency of change. To test these hypotheses, we collected three‐wave data from 124 teams in four Chinese organizations that were implementing a pay system based on team performance. The results showed that team abusive supervision was positively related to team behavioral resistance to change. Both team cognitive distrust and affective distrust mediated the relationship between team abusive supervision and team behavioral resistance to change. Moreover, perceived frequency of change strengthened the relationship between team abusive supervision and team affective distrust (rather than team cognitive distrust) in the supervisor and the indirect relationship between team abusive supervision and team behavioral resistance to change via team affective distrust. By employing a team abusive supervision perspective, this study expands our knowledge of the drivers of team behavioral resistance to change and provides insights regarding how supervisors should lead their teams during organizational change.

The multiple faces of collective responses to organizational change: Taking stock and moving forward

“…From these comparisons, collective attitudes, beliefs, and intergroup relations emerge that shape the group's response to change that may present a challenge or threat to the collective's future existence. In our special issue, Harvey (2023), and Peng et al (2023) integrate tenets of social comparison and emotional contagion literature into their theoretical argumentation and illustrates the relevance of these social cognition mechanisms at work in the emergence of collective responses to change.…”

“…For example, Sverdlik and Oreg (2023) use an additive model as composition approach to justify aggregation of dispositional resistance at the collective level (see also Kanitz et al, 2023) conceptualization of group championing level). Several researchers also focus on the referent‐shift composition models that entail the need for shifting the referent of focal construct before making the aggregation of individual responses to change to represent collective responses to change (e.g., Harvey, 2023; Pallotti et al, 2023; Peng et al, 2023).…”

“…With this approach the collective emerges from a wide range of sensemaking, whereby individuals come together while holding different attitudes, enabling a reciprocal relationship between individual and group rather than an aggregated or causal one. Typically, collectives in an organizational context are characterized by shared objective interests, shared values, similar symbols and perspectives, intra‐communication channels, and shared leadership, as several papers in this special issue highlight (Harvey, 2023; Peng et al, 2023). In this way, and recognizing Daft and Weick (1984) on organizational interpretation, an organization is an embodiment of the commonly shared social categories that arise (e.g., social identity, shared commitment, cultural norms, etc.).…”

“…For instance, Kanitz et al (2023) leverage situational strength theory (Meyer et al, 2010) to elucidate the influence of change championing asymmetry on team‐level change response. Peng et al (2023) employ social exchange theory (Cook & Emerson, 1978) to shed light on the role of supervisor distrust in the relationship between abusive supervision and team resistance to change. Harvey and Kudesia (2023) depends on social cognitive theory as a primary framework to explicate the emergence of collective emotions related to change.…”

“…Second, Peng et al (2023), in their paper “Team Abusive Supervision and Team Behavioral Resistance to Change: The Roles of Distrust in the Supervisor and Perceived Frequency of Change” investigate whether the relationship between abusive supervision and behavioral resistance to change can be clarified through team distrust in the supervisor and is influenced by the team's perceived frequency of change. The authors collected three‐wave data from 124 teams across four Chinese organizations implementing a team performance‐based pay system.…”