It's not me, it's you: Testing a moderated mediation model of subordinate deviance and abusive supervision through the self‐regulatory perspective
| Author | Hussain Tariq,Samson Samwel Shillamkwese,Thomas Noel Garavan,Asfia Obaid,Qingxiong Weng |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12245 |
| Date | 01 January 2020 |
| Published date | 01 January 2020 |
Business Ethics: A Eur Rev. 2020;29:227–243. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/beer
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© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
1 | INTRODUCTION
Research highli ghts that abusive super vision, defined as the “ [super‐
visor's] sustai ned display of host ile verbal and no nverbal behavior
[towards subordinat es], excluding physic al contact ” (Tepper, 2000,
p. 178) has deleterious ef fects on ab used employee’ o utcomes, in‐
cluding job performance, engagement, motivation, and attitudes
at work (see Mackey, Frieder, Bree s, & Martinko, 2 017; Martinko,
Harvey, Brees, & Ma ckey, 2013; Schyns & Schilling , 2013; Tepper,
Simon, & Park, 2 017 for recent reviews). Give n the prevalen ce of
abusive super vision in organ izations, res earchers have foc used on
understa nding why and under what cond itions it occurs.
To understand the etiology of abusive supervision at the workplace,
researchers have used two different approaches, that is, the trickle‐
down approach and the victimization approach. The trickle‐down
approach argues that the supervisor mistreats his/her subordinates
because of mistreatment he/she experiences from his/her own boss or
superior (e.g., Aryee, Chen, Sun, & Debrah, 2007; Liu, Liao, & Loi, 2012;
Mawritz, Mayer, Hoobler, Wayne, & Marinova, 2012). In contrast, the
victimization approach (Aquino & Thau, 2009) argues that abusive
treatment is linked to the actions and characteristics of the subordi‐
nates who evoke the maltreatment (e.g., Javed, Fatima, Yasin, Jahanzeb,
& Rawwas, 2019; Lian, Ferris, Morrison, & Brown, 2014; Tepper, Moss,
& Duffy, 2011; Walter, Lam, Van der Vegt, Huang, & Miao, 2015).
Recently, Mawritz, Greenbaum, Butts, and Graham (2017) called for
further research to better understand the behavior of the subordinates
who instigate their own abuse at the workplace. Thus, the purpose of
this study is to extend this underdeveloped line of inquiry on the an‐
tecedents of abusive supervision by exploring the behavior of subordi‐
nates who instigate their own abuse at the workplace.
Received:3Oc tober2018
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Revised:1July2 019
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Accepted:13Augu st2019
DOI: 10 .1111/bee r.12245
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
It's not me, it's you: Testing a moderated mediation model of
subordinate deviance and abusive supervision through the
self‐regulatory perspective
Samson Samwel Shillamkwese1 | Hussain Tariq1,2 | Asfia Obaid2 |
Qingxiong Weng1 | Thomas Noel Garavan3
1School of Mana gement, Universi ty of
Science and Techn ology of China, Hefe i,
China
2NUST Busine ss School, Nationa l University
of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad,
Pakistan
3Edinburgh Napier Business
School, Edinburgh Napier University,
Edinburgh, UK
Correspondence
Hussain Tariq, Department of Business
Administr ation, Universit y of Science and
Technology of Chi na, 96 Jinzhai Road, Hef ei
230026, Anhui, China.
Email: hussain@mail.ustc.edu.cn,
husain4one@gmail.com
Funding information
Financial su pport from the Nat ural Sciences
Foundation of C hina (Project no. 71373251;
no. 71422014) is gratefully acknowledged.
Abstract
Synthesizing self‐regulator y theories, we provi de new insights into the ante cedents
of abusive supervis ion. We, from the persp ective of super visor's self‐regulator y re‐
sources depletion or impairment, introduce supervisor hindrance stress as an un‐
derlying mechanism of the subordinate deviance–abusive supervision relationship:
this mediated relation ship will be intensified at t he level of high subordinate jo b
performance. I n addition, we develop a co mplex contingency m odel and propose a
three‐way interaction (i.e., subordinate deviance, job performance, supervisor out‐
come dependence) to obt ain the complete unde rstanding of th e subordinate devi‐
ance–abusive supervision relationship facilitated through the supervisors’ hindrance
stress. To test our moder ated moderated mediation model, we g athered time‐lagged
and multisource dat a from a large food ser vice company locate d in southern China .
We collected data at two di fferent points ( i.e., Time 1 and Time 2) f rom supervi‐
sors and their dire ct reports (N = 298 responses from 6 8 supervisors and 298 direct
reports), and fi ndings provide supp ort for the hypoth esized moderated mo derated
mediation model of our s tudy. We highlight the implic ations of our study for theory,
research, and practice.
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SAMWEL SHILLAMK WESE Et AL.
Utilizing the vic timization ap proach (Aqui no & Thau, 200 9), we
argue that the su bordinates' deviance (e. g., gossip about their b osses
or behave rudely w ith their boss es; Mawritz et al ., 2017; Mitchell
& Ambrose, 20 07), provokes their superviso rs to behave in an abu‐
sive manner toward t hem. This may occur because sup ervisors us e
abusive super vision as an inst rumental too l or strategy to l imit the
subordinate's dev iance or to send a mes sage that this beh avior
will not be tolerat ed at the workpla ce. For example, Wal ter et al.
(2015), Khan, Moss , Quratulain, a nd Hameed (2018) and Tariq an d
Weng (2018) argued that supervisors when dealing with low per‐
formers (i.e., s ubordinates' un desirable be havior) may purpos efully
or instrumen tally use abusi ve behavior “to eli cit high perfo rmance
[from subordinate s] or to send the mess age that mistakes w ill not
be tolerated” ( Tepper, 2007, p. 265). In contrast to the i nstrumental
or intentional, o r thoughtful nature of abusive s upervision, recently
Liang et al. (2016), and Mawr itz et al. (2017) arg ued that when su‐
pervisor s deal with their direc t reports' undesir able behaviors at the
workplace, th ey act on their tem pting impulse s or urges when en‐
gaging in abuse. T herefore, our stu dy focuses on the limit ed research
on unintentiona l abuse which suggests that s upervisors may not be
intentionally o r deliberatel y abuse their dire ct report s, but it could
be in response to tempting impulses instigated from their direct re‐
ports’ aver sive actions or behavior s.
Our understanding of the relationship between subordinate
deviance and abu sive supervision is embryon ic (e.g., see Lian et al.,
2014; Mawritz et al., 2017). Fro m the perspective of self‐regulat ion
theory (Ba umeister, 1998; Baumeister, Brats lavsky, Muraven, & Tice,
1998), we develop and test a mo del that educ ates the super visor's
self‐regulatory resources depletion process (i.e., stressor–stress–
outcome) betwe en subordinate deviance (s tressor), hindrance st ress
(stress), and abus ive supervision (outcome). We prop ose that subor‐
dinate deviance, a s a supervisor's hi ndrance stresso r, will deplete the
limited pool of the supervisor's self‐regulatory resources (Muraven
& Baumeister, 200 0), consistin g of cognitive and emo tional re‐
sources (Eissa & Wyland, 2018). These self‐regulatory resources
are required when handling, controlling, or facing challenging or de‐
manding workp lace situations, such as the behav ior of deviant sub‐
ordinates (Mawritz et al., 2017). Therefore, self‐regulatory resources
depletion makes the supervisor less capable of controlling tempting
urges or impulse s (Thau & Mitchell, 2010), for examp le, the urge to
abuse deviant sub ordinates to teac h them a lesson or t he urge to
send a message t hat this behavior will not be toler ated in the work‐
place. Hence, we draw on the supervisor's self‐regulatory resources
depletion per spective to argue that supe rvisor's hindrance str ess is
an important underlying mechanism to explain the relationship be‐
tween subordinate deviance and abusive supervision.
Self‐regulation research emphasizes that certain contextual fac‐
tors may influence an individual's self‐regulation process, more spe‐
cifically un der stressful situations (Eis sa & Wyland, 2018; Liu et al.,
2015). We propose two con ceptual factors, t hat is, the subordinate's
job performance, and the supervisor's outcome dependence, as
boundary conditions that influence the supervisor's self‐regulation
process when ex periencing deviant be havior from subordinates . We
make two key assumpti ons in making this argumen t. First, self‐regu‐
lation theor y proposes that when an i ndividual receives inc onsistent
information, the depletion effect of self‐regulatory resources will
be intensified . Thus, in an effort to redu ce inconsistent information ,
this effort c an exacerbate t he impairment e ffect of self‐regu latory
resources requ ired to respond i n an appropriate m anner to others’
harmful act s (Baumeister & Vohs , 2007; Mawritz et al ., 2017). In
line with this argument, we propose that when dealing with devi‐
ant subordinate s, those with hig h performan ce send inconsis tent
information, t hus, exacerba te the depletio n effect of supe rvisor's
self‐regulatory resources. This results in supervisor hindrance stress,
making him/her l ess able to respond appropriat ely to subordinate's
deviance who are a lso high performers, and , therefore, engaging in
abusive supervision.
Second, self‐regulation theory proposes that the depletion ef‐
fect of self‐regulato ry resource s is not only exacer bated by incon‐
sistent informat ion but is also intensified by behavi oral or outcome
expectati ons that are inconsistent wit h the situation. We argue that
“the extent to w hich a subordinate's c ontributions i nfluence a su‐
pervisor 's outcomes” (Walter et al., 2015, p. 1057) refe rred here as
supervisor outcome dependence intensifies the effect of supervi‐
sor's self‐regulation depletion. This occurs because the behavioral
or outcome expectations (i.e., the supervisor's outcome dependence
on subordinates) t hat are depende nt on the behavior of d eviant
subordinates ar e inconsistent or mismatched. T his argument is con‐
sistent with sel f‐regulation theor y which sugge sts that the ef fects
of an individual's self‐regulatory resources depletion are exagger‐
ated when an indiv idual receives i nconsistent infor mation from a
situation that is a lso inconsistent w ith the behavio ral or outcome
expectati ons of that indivi dual. We, therefor e, propose that w hen
supervisor encounters deviant subordinates, they will deviate from
the normative ex pectations of the super visor (Mawritz et al., 2017;
Mitchell & Ambrose, 2007), resulting in supervisor's self‐regulatory
resources depletion. Moreover, this depletion effect will be exac‐
erbated where d eviant subordin ate exhibit high pe rformance (p ro‐
viding inconsistent information) on which the supervisor' outcome
is dependent (b ehavioral or ou tcome expect ations). Thus, th is sit‐
uation results in supervisor hindrance stress, which subsequently
provokes abusive supe rvision.
Based on this arg umentation , we introduce a thre e‐way inter‐
action (i.e., subordinate deviance, job performance, and supervisor
outcome dependence) to better understand the subordinate devi‐
ance–abusive super vision relati onship (see Figu re 1). We propose
that the super visor is likely to experience hind rance stress and will
ultimately be in capable of contr olling his/her tem pting impulses o r
urges, resulting in abusive supervision. Specifically, this occurs be‐
cause the (a) supervisor experiences deviant behavior from his/her
subordinates at the workplace (thus the self‐regulatory resources
required to resp ond appropriately toward h armful behaviors or act s
are depleted), (b) su pervisor f aces deviant sub ordinates who have
high rather tha n low job performance (re sulting in inconsisten t infor‐
mation to the supe rvisor that aggravat e the effect of self‐regulator y
resources depletion), and (c) supervisor has outcome dependency on
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