Black and Abused: The Adverse Impact of Trump-Supporting Supervisors on Black Employees

Abstract

In the wake of the tragic deaths of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd, many organizations issued statements proclaiming #BlackLivesMatter. Nonetheless, management scholars have highlighted the various ways that organizations show that Black employees do not matter and have called for a greater emphasis on Black scholarship. Black scholarship refers to the epistemic practices grounded in the social realities of Black people at work or in society. We seek to extend Black scholarship research by integrating insights from the Trump effect literature. Subsequently, we rely on social cognitive and organizational resentment theories to explain why Trump-supporting supervisors have an anti-Black racial bias and why they model the abusive leadership style of former United States President Donald J. Trump that elicits organizational resentment from Black employees. Across two studies (an experimental-causal-chain study and a field study), we find that perceived Trump-supporting supervisors, in comparison to perceived Trump-opposing supervisors, are more likely to abuse their Black employees. In turn, as Black employees experience abusive supervision, they develop resentment toward their employers. We also find that the impact of abusive supervision on organizational resentment is weaker when Black employees’ organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) is low compared to high. This is because Black employees with low OBSE are more likely to blame themselves for the abuse. Theoretical contributions, practical implications, limitations, and future research are discussed.