The unwelcoming experience of abusive supervision and the impact of leader characteristics: turning employees into poor organizational citizens and future quitters

ABSTRACT

Over three studies (i.e., two 2 × 2 experiments and a multi-source field study), we examine the relationship between abusive supervision, leader characteristics, and organizational inclusion on employee outcomes. Drawing on the group value theory of organizational justice and multiple needs theory of organizational justice, we argue that abusive supervision is counterproductive to making employees feel welcome. Specifically, we demonstrate that abusive supervision demoralizes employees’ feelings of organizational inclusion. Additionally, we draw upon research that suggests that the display of hostility inherent in abusive supervision can be perceived differently when it comes from a strategic versus impulsive source. We build upon this reasoning to examine and explain how leader characteristics might alter the effect of abusive supervision on organizational inclusion. More specifically, we suggest that leader political skill (i.e., strategic source) and leader neuroticism (i.e., impulsive source) act as moderators of the relationship between abusive supervision and organizational inclusion. We integrate organizational justice and inclusion theories to demonstrate that abusive supervision can be interpreted as an unwelcoming experience that ultimately has the ability to turn employees into poor organizational citizens (i.e., decrease engagement of OCBs) and future quitters (i.e., increase of turnover intentions). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Abusive supervision
• organizational justice
• organizational inclusion
• leader political skill
• leader neuroticism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. One possible explanation for this significant interaction is that both abusive supervision and neuroticism contains elements of hostility. As such, it is likely that this had unintended confounding and magnifying effect on the abusive supervision manipulation check item.

2. We were unaware of any empirically validated measures of Shore et al.’s conceptualization of inclusion at the time of the larger data (Fall 2012). Therefore, we utilized Pierce et al.’s (1989) measure of organizational-based self-esteem as a proxy for inclusion based upon conceptual similarities and empirical evidence. Tepper et al. (2011) proposed that inclusion refers to the degree that an individual believes that he or she is an esteemed member of an organization through experiencing treatment that satisfies his or her needs for belongingness and uniqueness. Similarly, organizational-based self-esteem (OBSE) is the degree to which an individual believes him/herself to be a capable, significant, and worthy as an organizational member. Shore et al implies that inclusion is achieved (i.e., degree that an individual believes that he or she is an esteemed member of an organization) through experiencing treatment that satisfies the needs of belongingness and uniqueness. The scale items of Pierce et al.’s (1989) captures that the themes of belongingness and uniqueness. For example, belongingness theory (Leary & Downs, 1995) and empirical evidence (e.g., Ferris et al., 2009; Leary et al., 2006; Pierce et al., 1989) suggests that thoughts associated with “I count around her” and “I am important around here” satisfies the need of belonging, whereas thoughts associated with “I can make a difference around here” are a belief that an individual’s uniqueness is valued by the organization (Pierce & Gardner, 2004). Consequently, this scale embodies how an individual can simultaneously be treated as an insider (i.e., belonging) and encouraged/allowed to retain their uniqueness within organization, which is characteristic of Shore et al.’s (2011) inclusion matrix. In a separate sample of 90 working professionals, we also found that organizational-based self-esteem was highly correlated (r =.694, p <.1) with the organizational diversity climate measure validated by Pugh et al. (2008) that was designed to measure the inclusiveness of an organization.