Supervisor and Customer-Driven Stressors to Predict Silence and Voice Motives: Mediating and Moderating Roles of Anger and Self-Control

Abstract

This study aims to investigate communicative deviance among front line employees (FLEs) as a consequence of supervisor and customer mistreatment. The emotion of anger as a mediator while self-control as a moderator is positioned to buffer the customer and supervisor aggression–>communicative deviance. The survey-based data from 284 Turkish FLEs demonstrate that abusive supervision triggers negative emotion of anger, resulting in deviant silence. A stronger support for self-control as a moderator to buffer the anger–deviant silence relationship is also found. The study uniquely integrates human emotions to investigate destructive work behaviors in a service context.