How And When Abusive Leader Behavior Affects Employees’ Job Performance

Abusive behavior refers to “subordinates’ perceptions of the extent to which supervisors engage in the sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors,excluding physical contact”.As a destructive leadership behavior,abusive supervision is widely existed in the workplace,and because of its detrimental effects on individual and organizational outcomes,it has become a fancy topic.Previous research support the view that abusive leader behavior will have impact on subordinates’ various work outcomes,such as job performance,job satisfaction,creative behavior and so on.But there is still a long way to go:(1)Extant studies have not always found a consistent negative relationship between abusive leader behavior and the subordinates’ job performance.Some studies have shown that abusive behavior of leaders can either facilitate or hinder task performance.(2)An increasing number of researchers have focused on the different effects of abusive leader behavior on employees’ job performance and some researchers started to focus on abusive supervision mechanisms through which affect job performance.Yet,past research offers only a limited insight into mechanisms through which abusive leader behavior affects employees’ job performance,and the study of what measures can we take to effectively mitigate the negative effects of abusive supervision on job performance is still incomplete.Based on the extant research status and our purposes,we propose a moderated mediation model to theorize and test how and when abusive leader behavior relates to worse job performance.First,our present research aims to enhance the understanding of the psychological process leading to bad job performance by providing a new mechanism that explains why moral awareness matter for employees’ in-role performance and to provide new conceptual insights into why abusive leader behavior,relate more stronger to job performance among some employees than among others.The main steps of this study are as follows:Firstly,literature review and theoretical framework development.This study reviewed the relevant literature on abusive supervision,moral awareness,trust climate,job performance and so on,and systematically reviewed the connotation,measurement and research status of the main research variables.Based on theories and empirical evidences,this paper proposes a moderated mediation model,that is,abusive behavior can trigger employees’ moral awareness,which has an indirect negative impact on employees’ job performance,and the trust climate of organizations has a moderating effect on this indirect relationship.Secondly,empirical research procedures and hypotheses testing.In study I,we conducted an experimental scenario design to test our hypotheses(n=151),and in study Ⅱ,we used questionnaires to test the hypotheses by analyzing a sample of 277 supervisor–subordinate pairs.The results basically supported our hypotheses: Trust climate moderates the relationship between abusive leader behavior and job performance through employees’ moral awareness,and that such negative relationships are stronger among employees in a group with lower levels of trust climate.In addition,without considering the moderating effect of trust climate,the mediating effect of moral awareness on the relationship between abusive supervision and job performance was not significant.These findings highlight the important role of trust climate in the organization and the potential risks incurred when leaders act in ways that trigger employees’ moral awareness.Finally,Theoretical implications,applied implications,research limitations,and directions for future research are all provided.