The effect of abusive supervision on employee deviant behaviors: an identity-based perspective

Abstract

Drawing on the identity perspective, we investigate the roles of organizational and moral identification in the relationship between abusive supervision and subordinates’ organizational deviance. By conducting a multiwave study of 182 subordinate–supervisor dyads, we found that organizational identification partially mediated the relationship between abusive supervision and subordinates’ organizational deviance after controlling for perceived leader social support as an alternative mediator. In addition, we demonstrated that organizational identification interacted with moral identification in affecting organizational deviance in the workplace and that moral identification moderated the indirect effect of abusive supervision on organizational deviance via organizational identification. However, we did not find a mediating effect of moral identification, and we call for future studies to explore the impact of more specific facets of identities in abusive supervision situations. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.