The influence of abusive supervision on employees’ motivation and extra-role behaviors

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to attempt to unlock how and why abusive supervision influences employees’ day-to-day behaviors. Thus, the present study proposes that employees who are continuously faced with a supervisor’s hostile verbal and nonverbal behavior might obstruct their willingness to exhibit two different kinds of extra-role behaviors [i.e. organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and voice] because sustained abusive behavior might hinder employees from their tasks and result in disengagement. Abused employees are more likely to disengage from their current tasks, and this is likely to in turn result in lower OCB and voice. Design/methodology/approach The data were collected from a Taiwan mid-sized high-tech manufacturing company. The present study adopted a within-person approach (a daily-basis research design) and collected data from 60 front-line employees over 10 working days. Although all variables were self-rated, common method variance is minor. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to ensure discriminant and convergent validity, and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to test the hypotheses. Findings The results of CFA ensure the measures have discriminant and convergent validity, while the results of HLM analysis showed that work engagement fully mediates the negative relationship between abusive supervision and the two kinds of extra-role behaviors. The bootstrapping results also support the full mediation effect of work engagement. Originality/value The present study used the job demands-resources model to examine how abusive supervision influences employees’ OCB and voice and found that work engagement is one possible mechanism between these two types of extra-role behavior. Specifically, a daily research design discovered that in a given working day, once a leader exhibits abusive supervision behavior, compared with any given day without abusive behaviors, employees will find it difficult to focus on their current tasks (i.e. through exhibiting decreased work engagement), which will in turn influence their willingness to exhibit OCB and voice on that particular day. Thus, both researchers and managers should focus on the daily interactions between leaders and employees because it is impossible to achieve organization success in one day, but rather such success is the aggregate result of both leaders’ and employees’ daily efforts.

Abusive supervision, occupational well-being and job performance: The critical role of attention–awareness mindfulness

“…This finding provides an interesting complement to JD-R studies that find stronger relationships of job resources, rather than job demands, with work engagement (Bakker et al, 2014;Halbesleben, 2010). Our theoretical framework does not include job resources -so a direct comparison of their effects on work engagement, relative to those of job demands, is not feasible -but the prominent mediating role of work engagement that we identify is consistent with prior research on the detrimental effect of hindrance demands on work engagement (Barnes et al, 2015;Huang et al, 2019). As Barnes et al, (2015Barnes et al, ( : 1423) explicate, 'subordinate motivation is proximal psychologically to abusive behaviour and thus likely to be a strong psychological outcome for subordinates experiencing abusive supervision', so 'by providing an experience that employees will find aversive, abusive supervision should leave employees more likely to withdraw than to engage themselves heavily in their work'.…”

The relationship between abusive supervision and employee's reaction: the job demands-resources model perspective

“…Participants completed a 15-item measure developed by Tepper (2000) to disclose their perceptions of their leaders' abusive supervision behavior. Previous research reported acceptable alpha coefficients for the measure ranging from 0.83 to 0.97 (Chen and Wang, 2017; Huang et al , 2018; Mawritz et al , 2012). A sample item is: “My supervisor ridicules me.” In this study, the alpha coefficient was 0.96.…”

“…Barnes et al (2015) further suggested that researchers examine abusive supervision by exploring fluctuations in a given leader's abusive behaviors on a given day (Petrou et al , 2012). Therefore, considering a daily (day-to-day; Barnes et al , 2015; Huang et al , 2018) research design is insightful when investigating abusive supervision alongside cross-sectional and temporal designs. The third limitation is the nested data.…”

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

“…As a typical negative leadership behavior, abusive supervision has garnered increasing research attention due to its prevalence and resulting high costs (Huang et al., 2019; Mackey et al., 2015). Numerous studies have demonstrated that subordinates’ perceptions of abusive supervision are positively associated with counterproductive work behavior, workplace deviance, work‐to‐family conflict, and emotional exhaustion and are negatively associated with organizational citizenship behavior, performance, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment (e.g.…”