Abusive supervision and organizational citizenship behaviour: is supervisor–subordinate guanxi a mediator?

Abstract

This study attempts to extend the theoretical and empirical work of previous studies on abusive supervision in light of new insights into supervisor–subordinate guanxi (s-s guanxi) and two distinct dimensions of organizational citizenship behaviours. Data were collected from a survey of 280 employees and their 280 direct supervisors in a Chinese organization. Results indicate that abusive supervision is positively related to subordinates' organizational citizenship behaviours towards individuals (OCBI), whereas there is no relationship between abusive supervision and organizational citizenship behaviours towards the organization (OCBO). Moreover, our analyses establish a mediating role of s-s guanxi in the relationship between abusive supervision and OCBI and OCBO. Our results also demonstrate that s-s guanxi more strongly affects OCBI than OCBO. Implications and specific suggestions for practitioners are discussed.

Keywords:

• abusive supervision
• China
• mediator
• organizational citizenship behaviour
• supervisor–subordinate guanxi

Acknowledgement

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (project code: 71002003).