How abusive supervision affects unethical pro-organisational behaviour: A moderated mediation examination of exchange and proactive personality

Abstract

In this study, we examined how abusive supervision would be associated with unethical pro-organisational behaviour (UPB). Using a time-lag study design, we collect a sample of 322 working adults from a large bank in the south-west of China (female = 53.1%; supervisors = 30.4%; mean age =30–40 years, SD = 0.71 years). Following mediating and moderating analyses, our results reveal that both economic and social exchange mediate the relationship between abusive supervision and UPB. Further, we found that the strength of this mediation effect differs between subordinates with high and low proactive personality predispositions. Our results suggest a need to train supervisors to adopt compassionate supervision which would enable employees to meet organisation goals without engaging in UPB.

Keywords:

• abusive supervision
• economic exchange
• proactive personality
• social exchange
• unethical pro-organisational behaviour