Impact of Abusive Supervision on Workplace Deviance and the Mediating Role of Revenge Cognition

Abstract

(Tepper B. J., 2006) said that abusive supervision states to continuous demonstration of non-physical methods of resentment done by managers against their direct reports. Public defamation, dejection and explosive outbreaks are some examples of behaviour that fall within the abusive supervision content sphere. Continuous display of abusive supervision at workplace negatively affects the employee’s performance because due to non-stop insult and degradation they face regularly, they undergo a lot of stress. Subordinates cannot put their skills in the best possible way as they are abused by their supervisors. Some of them become deviant at the workplace and show aggression towards their supervisors and the organization which ultimately makes an organization suffer due to lower performance of the employees. Moreover, abusive supervision may lead to high turnover of the employees as they don’t want to work in an abusive environment where their skills and efforts are not appraised. (Aryie, Sun, & Debrah, 2008) also make an addition in a way that due to abusive supervision quality of the work reduces as worker’s thoughts play an important role in their creativity. So, when they feel discomfort or abused in the workplace, they will not bring any fruitful change in the organization. Abusive supervision leads to job dissatisfaction in the employees. As (Estes & Wang, 2008) stated, abusive supervision lessens the participation level of subordinates as they feel not being valued by the organization. It creates a sense of frustration and aggression in employees and create communication gap among supervisor and subordinates