The Relation Between Supervisors’ Big Five Personality Traits and Employees’ Experiences of Abusive Supervision

Abstract

The present study investigates the relation between supervisors’ personality traits and employees’ experiences of supervisory abuse, an area that – to date – remained largely unexplored in previous research. Field data collected from 103 supervisor-subordinate dyads showed that contrary to our expectations supervisors’ agreeableness and neuroticism were not significantly related to abusive supervision, nor were supervisors’ extraversion or openness to experience. Interestingly, however, our findings revealed a positive relation between supervisors’ conscientiousness and abusive supervision. That is, supervisors high in conscientiousness were more likely to be perceived as an abusive supervisor by their employees. Overall, our findings do suggest that supervisors’ Big Five personality traits explain only a limited amount of the variability in employees’ experiences of abusive supervision.

Investigating the Nexus Between Personality Traits and Islamic Work Ethics

“…A conscientious person has traits such as hardworking, persistent, wellorganised, and goal oriented (Camps, Stouten, & Euwema, 2016). The relationship between conscientiousness and ethical predisposition is generally positive (Bratton & Strittmatter, 2013), where conscientiousness was found to link positively with ethical use of internet facility (Karim, Zamzuri, & Nor, 2009) and ethical leadership (Kalshoven et al, 2011).…”

“…Individuals high on neuroticism tend to experience negative moods such as anxiety, fear, depression, and irritability as well as other physical symptoms. In many studies, neuroticism has been found to be the significant predictor of unethical behaviour (e.g., Camps et al, 2016;Walumbwa & Schaubroeck, 2009). People high in neuroticism are insecure, deprived, angry, frustrated, and moody; thus, are more susceptible to negative emotions.…”

“…Agreeableness is the personality trait characterised by friendliness, cooperativeness, modesty, kindness, considerate, and helpful towards others (Camps et al, 2016). These characteristics have been found to relate positively with ethical predisposition, especially among leaders (Walumbwa & Schaubroeck, 2009).…”

“…Some studies such as that of Bratton and Strittmatter (2013) did not include openness-to-experience when studying the relationship between personality traits and intention to cheat. Camps et al (2016) stated that high openness-to-experience is negatively related to hostility, but positively correlated with tendency to engage in verbal aggression. These mixed results are also found in some other studies such as that of Saadullah and Bailey (2014) which suggested that openness-to-experience is closely associated with moral reasoning and thought.…”

Abusive Supervision from an Integrated Self‐Control Perspective

“…While some researchers have reconsidered the distinction between active and passive forms of abusive supervision as suggested by Mitchell and Ambrose (), it is rather surprising that these researchers (e.g. Breevaart & de Vries, ; Camps, Stouten, & Euwema, ) and even Mitchell and Ambrose () did not report the internal consistency of the subscale representing passive acts of abuse. Hence, although the consistency value in our study is rather low, we cannot say whether this is a unique feature of our study or a general problem of the subscale.…”