The impact of personal factors and firm dynamics on knowledge workers' counterproductive work behaviour

Abstract

The paper empirically tests the impact of abusive supervision and organisational tenure on emotional exhaustion and counterproductive work behaviour of knowledge workers as well as investigating the moderating role of psychological capital in the relationship between abusive supervision and organisational tenure and emotional exhaustion. Data were collected from a sample of knowledge workers, i.e., teachers, in Rawalpindi and Islamabad via a two-wave onsite-based survey. The final sample consisted of 243 teachers. Structural equation modelling analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Our results show that supervisors' abusive supervision is positively related to employees' counterproductive work behaviour and that supervisors' abusive supervision and employees' organisational tenure are positively related to employees' emotional exhaustion. Additionally, employees' psychological capital moderates the relationship between employees' organisational tenure and their emotional exhaustion. Ultimately, employees' emotional exhaustion partially mediates the relationship between supervisors' abusive supervision and employees' organisational tenure and their way of engaging in counterproductive work behaviour. The paper adds to the knowledge about the antecedents to employees' counterproductive work behaviour in the field of knowledge management research.