The ways to avoid abusive supervision: the moderating effects of the characteristics of supervisors and subordinates on abusive supervision

ABSTRACT

Following the recent emphasis on supervisory interactions in abusive supervision, this study explains why and how supervisors’ job insecurity and authoritarianism are related to abusive supervision and how subordinates’ characteristics, agreeableness and negotiating resistance interact with the effects of supervisors’ characteristics. We conducted a field study with 261 supervisor and subordinate dyads in South Korea, and the study findings confirmed that supervisors’ authoritarianism is positively related to abusive supervision and that the effect is enhanced when subordinates are highly agreeable and display resistant behaviors. The study contributes to the leadership literature, particularly on abusive supervision and personality. Moreover, our findings have practical implications for employees to manage their work relationships with their supervisors or subordinates.

Keywords:

• Abusive supervision
• supervisor insecurity
• supervisor authoritarianism
• subordinate resistance
• subordinate agreeableness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available at https://osf.io/yemgk/?view_only=f5b9021e7b484ca3b0066fae6b554a98

Open scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data and Open Materials through Open Practices Disclosure. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://doi.org/re3data.org

Ethical standards

Research involving Human Participants and/or Animals: Research involves human participants. Supervisor-subordinate dyads of Korean organizations voluntarily participated in the survey. The research project was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of California State University, Fullerton (CSUF IRB approval number: HSR-20-21-213)

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Jungmin (Jamie) Seo

Jungmin (Jamie) Seo is an Assistant Professor of Management at the College of Business and Economics at California State University, Fullerton, Fullerton, CA, USA. She received her Ph.D. in Management from Arizona State University. Her research interests include leadership, team, and employee turnover. Dr. Seo worked for Samsung before starting her academic career and has extensive experience of working with multinational companies around the world. Her research is published in the Academy of Management Journal and the Journal of Applied Psychology.

Haesang Park

Haesang Park is an Assistant Professor of Management at Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD, USA. She received her Ph.D. in Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Her research focuses on how leadership and culture influence employees’ performance and productive and counter-productive extra-role behaviors using multi-level analysis and meta-analysis. Her research has been published in the Journal of Management, Journal of Business Ethics, and Small Group Research.

Ju-Won Han

Ju-Won Han is a professor at Baewha Women's University, Seoul, Korea. She received her Ph.D. in Management from Sogang University, Seoul, Korea.