Theoretical and Empirical Developments on the Consequences of Abusive Supervision

Abstract

Abusive supervision is an insidious and growing problem for organizations. While many strides have been made to understand its impact, much more theory and research is needed to explain its consequences to victims and others within victims' broader social environment (i.e., observers, spouses). This symposium addresses this research agenda with five theoretically-driven empirical papers. The contributions in this symposium do this by: (1) examining different sources of perceptions of abusive supervision (i.e., perceived by the targeted subordinate and observing coworkers); (2) identifying various reactions of abusive supervision from targeted subordinates (e.g., ego depletion, facade behavior, job satisfaction, organization-based self- esteem, resistance, turnover intentions), observers within the workgroup (e.g., abuse targeted to the victim, supervisor-directed deviance), and target's spouses (e.g., spousal deviance), (3) highlighting psychological (e.g., leader-member exchange, respect for the victim, self-esteem), emotional (e.g., anger, shame), and behavioral mechanisms (e.g., home deviance) linking abusive supervision to outcomes; (4) exploring 1st stage moderators (e.g., group-focused transformational leadership, supervisor remorse, supervisor coercive power, victim gender, victim turnover intentions) that impact the abusive supervision-mediator variables relationship; and (5) exploring 2nd stage moderators (e.g., group potency) that affect outcomes. Lastly, the contributions integrate strong theoretical frames to explain the effects of abusive supervision and use methodologically-rigorous designs (e.g., multi-source data, time- separated data, multi-level analyses) to test the predictions. Victim Perceptions of Supervisor Remorse on the Relationship between Abusive Supervision and LMX Presenter: Dana L. Haggard; Missouri State U. Faking to Fit In? Supervisor Abuse and Turnover Intentions Impact on Victim Self-Esteem and Facade Presenter: Ryan M. Vogel; Pennsylvania State U., Erie Presenter: Marie S. Mitchell; U. of Georgia