Abstract
Abusive supervision is a type of dysfunctional leadership that fosters continuous verbal or nonverbal infractions on subordinates and undoubtedly negatively impacts various work outcomes. Past literature has explored the underlying rules of how this form of destructive leadership influences employees’ negative working attitudes. However, research focusing on exploring factors that buffer abusive supervision’s harmful effects on voice behavior is relatively scarce. Distinctively, this study seeks to examine under a lens the process through which abusive supervision will harm voice behavior while taking into account emotional exhaustion as a mediator. According to the conservation of resources theory, we propose a cross-domain buffering approach of the negative effect of abusive supervision on voice behavior by considering subordinates’ forgiveness and communication openness acting as the moderators. We test the hypotheses by analyzing 430 sample data from an enterprise in Zhejiang Province, China, using Mplus and SPSS software. The results reveal that emotional exhaustion plays a mediating role in the path analysis of abusive supervision and voice behavior. Moreover, subordinates’ forgiveness and communication openness negatively moderate the mediation path. We enrich current literature by investigating the mechanism of abusive supervision and the impact of this kind of dysfunctional leadership on voice behavior and how to minimize the negative effects. The suggestions proposed can be referred to by practitioners and researchers in establishing a positive working environment.
Highlights
Since Tepper proposed abusive management in 2000, other management research scholars following the same footsteps have pointed out abusive management’s harmfulness
The results show that the χ2, Tucker–Lewis index (TLI), comparative fit index (CFI), and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) of the original model are 1,298.431, 0.981, 0.982, and 0.022, respectively
We find that the negative effect of abusive supervision can be controlled and transformed into a positive outcome through the interventions of forgiveness and communication openness
Summary
Since Tepper proposed abusive management in 2000, other management research scholars following the same footsteps have pointed out abusive management’s harmfulness. As a form of “toxic” leadership in management, abusive supervision has been studied in human resources management, organizational behavior, and ethical leadership (Tepper, 2000; Whitman et al, 2014). Abusive supervision is defined as the perception of the extent to which subordinates perceive leaders to be engaged in continuous abuse, excluding any physical contact (Tepper, 2000). When employees endure such abuse from their supervisors, they may suffer psychological pain and stress Subordinates may choose to restrain themselves and follow their supervisors’ orders instead of speaking out their thoughts and openly expressing their feelings to avoid receiving continuous aggressive behavior from supervisors due to noncompliance (Frieder et al, 2015)
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