A STUDY OF ABUSIVE SUPERVISION AT WORK PLACE

By
Hajra Waqar
2016-GCWUF-3067

Project submitted in partial fulfilment of

the requirements for the degree of

BACHELOR
IN
BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

GOVERNMENT COLLEGE WOMEN UNIVERSITY, FAISALABAD.

JULY 2020

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 A study of abusive supervision at work place

Abstract:

The current study investigated the variable of abusive supervision. The study included

articles from different studies with various antecedents, outcomes and mediators of abusive

supervision. The study concluded that abusive supervision is a variable that is worthy to be

researched for the benefit of organizations and researchers. The study has theoretical

implications.

Introduction:

“Abusive supervision refers to subordinates' perceptions of the extent to which

supervisors engage in the sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviours,

excluding physical contact” (Tepper, 2000).

In this article, we will discuss the impacts of abusive supervision on organization. Abusive

supervision basically includes ridiculing or humiliating, angry tantrums and loud at someone

in front of others, devalues someone’s status, treating someone silently and pressurizes

someone. In recent years, it is suggested that abusive supervision is very extensive in

organizations and has devastating effects on emotions, psychological health and viewpoints

of assistants. Sometime abusive supervision is characterized as subjective assessment, which

means that the supervisor’s action is abusive with one individual and non-abusive with other;

the two subordinates render different assessment of same supervisor’s attitude (Tepper, et al.,

2000).

Antecedents of abusive supervision are as following: According to Tepper et al. (2000),

Depression refereed the relationship between the experience of procedural injustice of

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supervisor and abusive supervision, and this moderate effect comes out only when

subordinates were high in bleak affectivity.

Different authors declare that supervisors who are liable to enmity will show their hatreds

against targets other than the frustrating agent out of fear that doing so may bring to attention

further mistreatment. Specifically, supervisors who are tending to abuse subordinates will

show their hostility on high-negative-affectivity subordinates, those who attending

themselves as weak, unwilling and vulnerable or unable to defend themselves.

One more study that provides provision for a displaced aggression clarification for the

happening of abusive supervision, Hoobler and Brass (2006) originate that supervisors who

practiced psychological contract gap were more abusive toward their subordinates.

The authors defines that interactional injustice arise resentment and frustration that may be

moved against targets other than the source of injustice but that this is probable to occur when

supervisors hold a firm confidence that subordinates should prove unquestioning respect to

authority figures.

Some consequence of are as following: Job satisfaction and organization commitment are

negatively related with abusive supervision. A research suggests abusive supervision has a

damaging effect on a number of organizational results, including increased subordinate disruptive

behaviours (Thau, Bennett, Mitchell, & Marrs, 2009), as well as reduced subordinate prosocial

behaviours (Zellars, Tepper, & Duffy, 2002), job performance (Harris, Kacmar, & Zivnuska, 2007),

organizational commitment, job satisfaction (Tepper, et aL., 2000). It also includes psychological

distress, co-worker directed aggression, resistance, emotional exhaustion and job strain.

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Objective:

The objective of this study is

 To review multiple studies relevant to turnover intention to highlight its importance in

research.

Variable of this
•Depression study •Job satisfaction
•Displaced agression •Organization commitment
•Intractional injustice •Job performance
•Hostility •Abusive Supervision •Psychological distress
•Resistance

Antecedents Outcomes

Literature review:

A growing works explores abusive supervision, nonphysical procedures of anger done by

managers against their direct intelligences. However, researchers have used different

expressions to explore phenomena that correspondence with abusive supervision and extant

research does not transfer from a uniting theoretical framework. The author therefore

provides a review of the literature that summaries what is well-known about the antecedents

and outcomes of abusive supervision, provides the basis for a growing model that participates

in extant empirical work, and suggests guidelines for future research (Tepper, 2007).

In this study, author observes the connection between employee observations of supervisor abuse,

emotional collapse, psychological right, and succeeding co-worker abuse. He imagine that higher

levels of employee psychological power moderate the abusive supervisor – expressive collapse

relationship – and this communication mediates the abusive supervision – co-worker abuse

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relationship. He discuss implications for theory, future research, and administration practice that

effect from his study. He included sample of 132 employees working through a wide variety of

industries in US. There were 47 males and 83 females in the sample, average age was 39.63 years

and average hours were 41.69 (Wheeler, Halbesleben & Whitman 2013).

Recent researches have shown that management had an important influence on employee

creativity. Yet, the authors have little knowledge about the link between the dark side of

leadership-abusive supervision, and employee creativity, as well as its primary instruments.

The purpose of this research is to observe the connection between abusive supervision and

employee creativity and mediating role of psychological safety and organizational

identification between employee creativity and abusive supervision. The sample included

ssupervisors and their employees from one company working in a large state-owned initiative

in the city of Changsha, where there are more than 3000 operate members. He conducted

planned interviews with 4 managers from the HR department, administrative department,

supply department, and production department to confirm our scale items. Out of 506 surveys

received 457 useable results.( Liu, Zhang, Liao, Hao, & Mao, 2016).

Recent studies of organizational behaviour have seen an increasing interest in unethical

leadership. The proposes of this research is to establishing a framework for its antecedents

and examine it using meta-analysis. Based on an analysis of effect sizes taken from 74

studies, comprising 30,063 participants. The results commonly support estimated

relationships across the four categories of abusive antecedents, including: supervisor related

antecedents, subordinate related antecedents, association related antecedents, and

demographic characteristics of both administrators and subordinates (Zhang, & Bednall,

2016).

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Different authors in different years explored the consequences of abusive supervision. These

studies recommend that, related to their nonabused colleagues, subordinates who observe that

their administrators are more abusive are not satisfied with their jobs, less loyal to their

organization, less trusting of their associates, more anxious and less eager to do prosocial

administrative behaviours. We used figures collected from a field survey of 2042 supervisor 518 used

a 5-point response scale (reaching from 1 = never to 5 = frequently, if not always) to examine model

of antecedents of abusive supervision {Tepper, Duffy, Henle & Lambert, 2006).

Most of the abusive supervision research has intensive on the supervisor– subordinate dyad

when investigating the effects of abusive supervision on employee results. Collected data

from a large multisource field study; author expend this research by testing a trickle-down

model of abusive supervision through 3 hierarchical levels (i.e., managers, supervisors, and

employees). Out of 1,915 surveys 1,423 responses received from employee and 295

supervisor responses out of 383 reviews. Responses for questions were made on a seven-

point response scale where 1 = never to 7 = always. The consistencies for these scales were

.97 for the supervisor respondents and .98 for the employee respondents. (Mawritz, Mayer,

Hoobler, Wayne, & Marinova, 2012).

We directed a two-study examination of associations between subordinates and abusive

supervision workplace deviance. I n first study useful data is from 537 panellists and in

second study 356 people respond. Average age is 45 years and 65% are women. A seven-point

response scale was used: 1 = ‘‘very strongly disagree” to 7 = ‘‘very strongly agree ”. The results

support the calculation that when aim to left is higher, abusive supervision is more strongly

connected with supervisor-directed deviance than with organization-directed deviance.

(Tepper, Carr, Breaux, Geider, Hu, & Hua 2009).

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This study observes the abusive supervision–job performance association with job

performance measured using formal presentation appraisal ratings, self-ratings, and

supervisor ratings. Moreover, we expect that the meaning one gains from work controls these

relationships. Data was collected from employees in an industry. 204 useable responses are

received, 5-poimt likert scale is used strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). Average age of

employees was 38.8 years. Results show that abusive supervision is negatively related

performance ratings. (Harris, Kacmar, & Zivnuska, et al., 2007).

While a large number of studies have surveyed the relationships between abusive supervision

and its consequences, there is an absence of a systematic and comprehensive framework that

integrates the significances and mediators of abusive supervision. This research was held

according to current quantitative and qualitative review articles related to abusive supervision

(Martinko et al., 2013; Schyns & Schilling, 2013; Tepper, et AL., 2007). The relationship between

abusive supervision and its outcomes were contingent on research designe, subordinates’ age,

time spent with supervisors and organizational tenure. Practical and theoretical suggestions

are discussed. (Zhang, & Liao, 2015).

It examined the effect of abusive administration on subordinate deviance, power distance and

inclusive of the role of justice. 79 independent sample studies are taken from previous

researches and concluded as that compared to advanced power distance values, abusive

supervision were stronger in lower power distance values. Also found that abusive

supervision was strongly connected to supervisory-focused justice, compared to

administratively focused justice observations, and both types of justice observations were

connected to target-similar deviance. (Park, Hoobler, Wu, Ledin, Hu, & Wilson, 2017).

The authors observed the relationship between supervisors' abusive supervision and

subordinates' core self-evaluations. Data is analysed from 290 samples, 6-point Likert scale is

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 used 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). The average age of the respondents was

35.16 years. Consequences show that core self-evaluations were negatively connected to

abusive supervision, while abusive supervision was positively connected to emotional

exhaustion. Both apparent co-worker susceptibility and support to emotional infection

moderated the connection between emotional exhaustion and abusive supervision. (wu, &

Hu, 2009)

Methods:

Measures:

Abusive supervision: Abusive supervision was measured by using 10 item scale developed

by Dai, Zhuang, and Huan (2019). ). The responses were taken on a five point likert scale

(strongly disagree=1 to strongly agree=5).

Abusive supervision (Dai, Zhuang, & Huan, 2019)

Question Question Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

no. Statement disagree Agree
1. I am generous with my 1 2 3 4 5
friends.
2. My supervisor redicules 1 2 3 4 5
me.
3. I quickly get over and 1 2 3 4 5
recover from being
startled.
4. My supervisor tells me 1 2 3 4 5
my thoughts and feelings
are stupid.
5. I often think about 1 2 3 4 5
quitting.

6. My supervisor puts me 1 2 3 4 5
down in front of others.

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7. My supervisor makes 1 2 3 4 5
negative comments about
me to others.
8. According to my 1 2 3 4 5
supervisor, I am
incompetent.
9. At my work, I feel 1 2 3 4 5
bursting with energy.

10. I often think of changing 1 2 3 4

my job. 5

Conclusion:

This study concluded that abusive supervision has been widely studied in literature by

multiple authors. The variable significantly worked as antecedent, outcome and mediator

with many other variables. The research should further explore this variable with new set of

variables in future studies.

References:

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