The Effects of Abusive Supervision Climate on Team Mindfulness and Team Conflict

Abstract

To examine abusive supervision in teams, scholars have recently proposed the concept of abusive supervision climate. Given the infancy of this line of study, we still know little about how abusive supervision climate functions in teams. We argue that one important, but thus far neglected consequence of abusive supervision climate, is team conflict. Here we examine whether and how abusive supervision climate influences relationship conflict, task conflict, and process conflict and propose team mindfulness as an underlying cognitive mechanism. From a sample of 499 employees in 92 teams, we found that abusive supervision climate aggravated task conflict and process conflict via diminishing levels of team mindfulness. Abusive supervision climate, however, did not exacerbate relationship conflict through this pathway. Our findings thereby advance our current understanding of the consequences of abusive supervision climate from a team mindfulness perspective.