The Third-Decade of Abusive Supervision Research: The Role of Time and Emotion

Abstract

Since Tepper’s (2000) work, abusive supervision has emerged as a solid research area. The first decade of research was devoted to the understanding of prevalence and perniciousness of abusive supervision. Demonstrating that scholarly interest in this construct has never been higher, the second decade of abusive supervision research was characterized with a series of qualitative and quantitative reviews focusing on clarifying the boundaries of abusive supervision (e.g., Mackey, Frieder, Brees, & Martinko, 2017; Martinko, Harvey, Brees, & Mackey, 2013; Schyns & Schilling 2013; Tepper, Simon, & Park, 2017; Zhang, Liu, Xu, Yang, & Bednall, 2019). A notable advance in the literature is the emergence of theoretical works in the Academy of Management Review, extending the boundary of abusive supervision by building new theory (Chan & McAllister, 2014; Oh & Farh, 2017; Vogel & Bolino, in press). Each of the papers provides a new avenue to the third decade of abusive supervision by emphasizing two major perspectives: a deeper consideration of time-based processes and an emphasis on emotion-based processes. Both foci have been the subject of discussion among abusive supervision scholars to date, yet the relative newness of these trends leaves many questions to be answered. The papers in this symposium take on this challenge. Two focus on the issue of time in different ways (e.g., inconsistency, temporal focus), and all four take up the issue of how emotions work in the abusive supervision episode. Overall, this symposium seeks to continue this ongoing conversation inspired by this new theory and provide answers to outstanding questions, while also setting a research agenda for the future. Swinging Between Abuse and Non-Abuse Across Time: A Polynomial Regression Approach Presenter: Seoin Yoon; Texas A&M U., College Station Presenter: Joel Koopman; Texas A&M U. Presenter: Nikolaos E. Dimotakis; Oklahoma State U. Presenter: Juanita Kimiyo Forrester; Mercer U. Presenter: Lauren Simon; U. of Arkansas Presenter: Bennett J. Tepper; Ohio State U. Presenter: Lindie Hanyu Liang; Wilfrid Laurier U. Presenter: Douglas J. Brown; U. of Waterloo Time Matters: Revisiting the Performance Consequences of Abusive Supervision Presenter: Lingtao Yu; U. of British Columbia Presenter: Michelle K Duffy; U. of Minnesota Presenter: Wu Wei; Wuhan U. Coping with Abuse: The Neutralizing Effects of Emotional Expressivity and Perspective Taking Presenter: Monique Alexandria Alvarez Domingo; U. of Connecticut Presenter: Jo K. Oh; U. of Connecticut Presenter: You Jin Kim; City U. of Hong Kong Presenter: Zhenyu Liao; Northeastern U. Presenter: Sunwook Chung; Sogang U. Social Information Processing and Third Party Reactions to Abusive Supervision Presenter: Chenduo Du; U. of Kentucky Presenter: Jie Li; Hong Kong U. of Science and Technology Presenter: Huiwen Lian; U. of Kentucky Presenter: Lance Ferris; Michigan State U. Presenter: Jingzhou Pan; Tianjin U.