The impact of abusive supervision and co-worker support on hospitality and tourism student employees’ turnover intentions in Ecuador

Abstract

Ram (2015. Hostility or hospitality? A review on violence, bullying and sexual harassment in the tourism and hospitality industry. Current Issues in Tourism. doi:10.1080/13683500.2015.1064364) posits that violence and harassment are areas of concern within the hospitality industry, and scholarly interest in abusive supervision in the workplace has grown since the last decade. This study extends Ram's (2015. Hostility or hospitality? A review on violence, bullying and sexual harassment in the tourism and hospitality industry. Current Issues in Tourism. doi:10.1080/13683500.2015.1064364) assertion by examining the effect of abusive supervision experiences on student employees’ turnover intentions in a hospitality and tourism context in a high power distance culture, Ecuador. The results showed that abusive supervision was positively related to turnover intentions, and its effect was stronger than co-worker support, with the abusive supervision–turnover intentions relationship being fully mediated by perceived organizational support (POS). In addition, co-worker emotional support was found to attenuate the negative effects of abusive supervision on POS. All in all, the findings highlight the roles of POS in explaining the relation between abusive supervision and turnover intentions and co-worker emotional support in buffering the negative effect of abusive supervision. The important role of culture is discussed.