Blaming the Organization for Abusive Supervision: The Roles of Perceived Organizational Support and Supervisor's Organizational Embodiment

Why do employees who experience abusive supervision retaliate against the organization? We apply organizational support theory to propose that employees hold the organization partly responsible for abusive supervision. Depending on the extent to which employees identify the supervisor with the organ...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of applied psychology 2013-01, Vol.98 (1), p.158-168
Main Authors: Shoss, Mindy K., Eisenberger, Robert, Restubog, Simon Lloyd D., Zagenczyk, Thomas J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abuse of Power
Adult
Aggression - psychology
Applied psychology
Biological and medical sciences
Employee Attitudes
Employees
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Humans
Leadership
Male
Management Personnel
Management styles
Moderated
Occupational psychology
Organization and management. Professional relation
Organization theory
Organizational behaviour
Organizational Culture
Organizational Objectives
Organizational Support
Organizations
Perceptions
Personnel Loyalty
Personnel Management - methods
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Retaliation
Retribution
Social Perception
Social Support
Studies
Supervision
Supervisor Employee Interaction
Supervisor-Subordinate interactions
Supervisors
Victimization
Victims
Work behaviour
Work condition. Job performance. Stress
Work place
Workplace - psychology
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Description
Summary:Why do employees who experience abusive supervision retaliate against the organization? We apply organizational support theory to propose that employees hold the organization partly responsible for abusive supervision. Depending on the extent to which employees identify the supervisor with the organization (i.e., supervisor's organizational embodiment), we expected abusive supervision to be associated with low perceived organizational support (POS) and consequently with retribution against the organization. Across 3 samples, we found that abusive supervision was associated with decreased POS as moderated by supervisor's organizational embodiment. In turn, reduced POS was related to heightened counterproductive work behavior directed against the organization and lowered in-role and extra-role performance. These findings suggest that employees partly attribute abusive supervision to negative valuation by the organization and, consequently, behave negatively toward and withhold positive contributions to it.
ISSN:0021-9010
1939-1854
DOI:10.1037/a0030687