Abstract
Abusive supervision has been recognized as a serious threat to the health of affected employees and to the sustainable development of organizations. Yet, the mechanism through which abusive supervision affects organizational performance is not well understood. We suggest that abusive supervision restricts important workplace behavior, especially networking behavior and organizational citizenship behavior, which is crucial for building social capital within organizations. We test our hypothesis using a new data set constructed from a questionnaire survey among Chinese employees in various firms. The results show that perceived abusive supervision affects both networking behavior and organizational citizenship behavior. Furthermore, networking behavior partially mediates the relationship between abusive supervision and organizational citizenship behavior. The results provide important insights into the role of abusive supervision in building social capital within organizations.
Highlights
As creativity and adaptability become increasingly important in a constantly changing business environment, firms are depending more upon employees who work voluntarily toward achieving organizational goals
In this study we suggested networking behavior as a mechanism that connects and mediates abusive supervision and Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)
We explored the relationship between abusive supervision, networking behavior and OCB in the Chinese context
Summary
As creativity and adaptability become increasingly important in a constantly changing business environment, firms are depending more upon employees who work voluntarily toward achieving organizational goals. Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), defined as employees performing extra roles voluntarily, has special importance in the study of organizational sustainability. Many studies have examined the role of OCB in organizational success [1,2,3,4]. As OCB promotes proactive and creative problem-solving to meet multiple stakeholders’ needs and demands, it contributes to organizational performance and adaptability. OCB itself is a sustainable workplace behavior for employees, because it contributes to both positive work-related outcomes, such as receiving help from others and better performance appraisal [5], along with employee wellbeing, because helping others provides gratification and directs attention away from one’s negative mood [6]. Understanding organizational antecedents of OCB is important in understanding organizational sustainability
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