IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jmerit/v2y2022i4p24-361d959831.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Investigating Employees’ Responses to Abusive Supervision

Author

Listed:
  • Xiaochuan Song

    (Department of Management, Marketing, and Information Systems, College of Business Administration, Texas A&M University-Kingsville, Kingsville, TX 78363, USA)

Abstract

Abusive supervision has been found to negatively impact employees. Extant literature based on the Social Exchange Theory (SET) has suggested that employees who experience abusive supervision are likely to engage in workplace deviant behaviors to respond to abusive supervision. However, from the standpoint of power distance, employees do not always respond to abusive supervision in negative ways. This paper aims to investigate employees’ perceptions and reactions to abusive supervision over time as well as factors that can impact their coping strategies to abusive supervision. By conducting two studies, including (1) a lagged-designed study with path analysis and mediation and moderation tests and (2) an experiment with independent sample t -tests, I examine employees’ reactions to abusive supervision over time as well as factors that impact their reactions. Results suggest that, over time, employees are likely to reconcile with their abusive supervisors. Furthermore, employees are less likely to reconcile with their abusive supervisor after engaging in workplace deviant behaviors. Furthermore, employees’ need for harmony (NFH) and the perceived value of the relationship with the supervisor (VOR) can impact their reactions to abusive supervision. This paper moves beyond the Social Exchange Theory, the overarching theory in abusive supervision literature, expands our understanding of abusive supervision, and discusses employees’ responses to abusive supervision over time. Contributions, implications, and future research are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiaochuan Song, 2022. "Investigating Employees’ Responses to Abusive Supervision," Merits, MDPI, vol. 2(4), pages 1-20, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jmerit:v:2:y:2022:i:4:p:24-361:d:959831
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2673-8104/2/4/24/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2673-8104/2/4/24/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Linn Van Dyne & Soon Ang & Isabel C. Botero, 2003. "Conceptualizing Employee Silence and Employee Voice as Multidimensional Constructs," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(6), pages 1359-1392, September.
    2. Klaas Sijtsma, 2009. "On the Use, the Misuse, and the Very Limited Usefulness of Cronbach’s Alpha," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 74(1), pages 107-120, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. James R. Detert & Linda K. Treviño, 2010. "Speaking Up to Higher-Ups: How Supervisors and Skip-Level Leaders Influence Employee Voice," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(1), pages 249-270, February.
    2. Florian M. Artinger & Sabrina Artinger & Gerd Gigerenzer, 2019. "C. Y. A.: frequency and causes of defensive decisions in public administration," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 12(1), pages 9-25, April.
    3. Li, Chang-Jun & Li, Fuli & Chen, Tingting & Michael Crant, J., 2022. "Proactive personality and promotability: Mediating roles of promotive and prohibitive voice and moderating roles of organizational politics and leader-member exchange," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 253-267.
    4. Conzo, Pierluigi & Aassve, Arnstein & Fuochi, Giulia & Mencarini, Letizia, 2017. "The cultural foundations of happiness," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 268-283.
    5. Tilahun Kidane Diko & Shabnam Saxena, 2023. "Antecedents and outcome of employee engagement: Empirical study of Ethiopian public higher education institutions," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 3(8), pages 1-30, August.
    6. Xue Tong Dong & Yang Woon Chung & Jeong Kwon Yun, 2023. "The Mediating Effects of Anxiety and Happiness and the Moderating Effect of Social Network Services for Employee Silence and Psychological Withdrawal Behavior," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, November.
    7. David Marsden, 2010. "Individual Voice in Employment Relationships: A Comparison Under Different Collective Voice Regimes," CEP Discussion Papers dp1006, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    8. Jun Huang & Gengxuan Guo & Dingping Tang & Tianyuan Liu & Liang Tan, 2019. "An Eye for an Eye? Third Parties’ Silence Reactions to Peer Abusive Supervision: The Mediating Role of Workplace Anxiety, and the Moderating Role of Core Self-Evaluation," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(24), pages 1-18, December.
    9. Carmen León-Mantero & José Carlos Casas-Rosal & Alexander Maz-Machado & Miguel E Villarraga Rico, 2020. "Analysis of attitudinal components towards statistics among students from different academic degrees," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(1), pages 1-13, January.
    10. Danni Liu & Anouk Dijk & Shanyan Lin & Zhenhong Wang & Maja Deković & Judith Semon Dubas, 2023. "Psychometric Properties of the Chinese Version of the Highly Sensitive Child Scale Across Age Groups, Gender, and Informants," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 16(4), pages 1755-1780, August.
    11. Brian K Miller & Kay M Nicols & Silvia Clark & Alison Daniels & Whitney Grant, 2018. "Meta-analysis of coefficient alpha for scores on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(12), pages 1-16, December.
    12. Xiaoshuang Lin & Zhen Xiong Chen & Herman H. M. Tse & Wu Wei & Chao Ma, 2019. "Why and When Employees Like to Speak up More Under Humble Leaders? The Roles of Personal Sense of Power and Power Distance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(4), pages 937-950, September.
    13. Adam Pawlewicz & Wojciech Gotkiewicz & Katarzyna Brodzińska & Katarzyna Pawlewicz & Bartosz Mickiewicz & Paweł Kluczek, 2022. "Organic Farming as an Alternative Maintenance Strategy in the Opinion of Farmers from Natura 2000 Areas," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(7), pages 1-22, March.
    14. Gorgijevski, Alexander & Holmström Lind, Christine & Lagerström, Katarina, 2019. "Does proactivity matter? the importance of initiative selling tactics for headquarters acceptance of subsidiary initiatives," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 25(4).
    15. Arzu Kader Harmanci Seren & İbrahim Topcu & Feride Eskin Bacaksiz & Nihal Unaldi Baydin & Emine Tokgoz Ekici & Aytolan Yildirim, 2018. "Organisational silence among nurses and physicians in public hospitals," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(7-8), pages 1440-1451, April.
    16. Ki-Seoung Lee & Yoon-Seo Kim & Hyoung-Chul Shin, 2023. "Effect of Hotel Employees’ Organizational Politics Perception on Organizational Silence, Organizational Cynicism, and Innovation Resistance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-12, March.
    17. David Marsden, 2013. "Individual Voice in Employment Relationships: A Comparison under Different Forms of Workplace Representation," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52, pages 221-258, January.
    18. Chin-Yi Shu & Nguyen Thi Nhu Quynh, 2015. "Guan-Xi, Loyalty, Contribution And ‘Speak-Up Behavior: The Role of Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) as Mediator and Political Skill as Moderator," Eurasian Journal of Business and Management, Eurasian Publications, vol. 3(2), pages 54-73.
    19. Eko Yi Liao & Chun Hui, 2021. "A resource-based perspective on leader-member exchange: An updated meta-analysis," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 38(1), pages 317-370, March.
    20. Zhining Wang & Shuang Ren & Doren Chadee & Yuhang Chen, 2024. "Employee Ethical Silence Under Exploitative Leadership: The Roles of Work Meaningfulness and Moral Potency," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 190(1), pages 59-76, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jmerit:v:2:y:2022:i:4:p:24-361:d:959831. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.