The Effects of Entitlement and Accountability on Perceptions of Abusive Supervision and Bullying

Abstract

This paper examines the role of subordinates’ entitlement, perceptions of abusive supervision, and felt accountability on their propensity to bully others in the workplace. A mediated moderation analysis of a multi-industry sample of 396 employees suggests that employees’ entitlement is indirectly associated with bullying behaviors through perceptions of abusive supervision, and is stronger for employees with lower levels of felt accountability. These results suggest that subordinates’ individual differences influence their perceptions of supervisory abuse and are associated with their propensity to engage in bullying behaviors in the workplace, conditional upon their felt accountability. Contributions of the research to scholarship and practice, strengths and limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.