Purpose: This paper explores the underlying causes of abusive supervision’s negative effects on employees, specifically focusing on employee self-efficacy and performance. Additionally, this study tests the potential... [ view full abstract ]
Purpose: This paper explores the underlying causes of abusive supervision’s negative effects on employees, specifically focusing on employee self-efficacy and performance. Additionally, this study tests the potential mitigating effect of employee resilience on the negative relationship between abusive supervision and employee self-efficacy and performance (including task performance and organizational citizenship behavior).
Design/methodology/approach: Using a snowball sampling procedure, 38 (of a necessary 103) supervisor-employee dyads have been collected thus far.
Findings: Preliminary findings indicate that employee self-efficacy does not mediate the negative relationship between abusive supervision and employee performance (both task performance and organizational citizenship behavior). However, employee resilience does appear to moderate the relationship between abusive supervision and employee self-efficacy. Finally, there does appear to be some evidence of a conditional indirect effect of abusive supervision on employee task performance through employee self-efficacy when employee resilience is present. Additional data is being collected to strengthen the reliability of these results.
Research limitations/implications: Limitations of this study include insufficient sample size (data collection is ongoing), potential assessment issues, and use of a snowball sample, although rationale is presented for why these limitations are acceptable at this time. This research may help to further understand the underlying reasons why abusive supervision has a negative impact on performance and what factors might mitigate that negative effect.
Originality/value: This paper explores a new potential mediating mechanism of the abusive supervision-to-performance relationship and attempts to understand what coping mechanisms (e.g., resilience) may exist to weaken the negative influence abusive supervision has on performance outcomes.
Keywords: abusive supervision, resilience, self-efficacy, task performance, organizational citizenship behavior
