Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Applied Research in Business, Management and Economics
Year: 2024
DOI:
[PDF]
Abusive Supervision and Workplace Deviance: The Role of Employee Emotional Ambivalence
Daniela Petrovski
ABSTRACT:
Abusive supervision is defined as the “subordinates’ perceptions of the extent to which their supervisors engage in hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors, excluding physical contact” (Tepper, 2000, p. 178). Abusive supervision is harmful for employees causing negative psychological and emotional outcomes and it is financially costly for organizations which is manifested through destructive deviant behaviors. However, despite the costs from abusive supervision and workplace destructive deviance, there is not enough research to understand these relationships and with that to find ways to mitigate the negative effects from them. Constructive deviance is a potential outcome from abusive supervision that can have positive effects for organizations. Some examples of constructive deviant behaviors are counter-role behavior, expressing voice, whistleblowing, creative disobedience, and some types of prosocial behaviors among others. Since not all employees engage in retaliatory behaviors through destructive deviance, some may engage in constructive deviance through speaking up and trying to mitigate the abusive supervision effects. Therefore, this research will investigate the effects of abusive supervision on constructive and destructive deviance under the conditions of organizational justice and self-other personality orientation. Relying on emotional contagion theory and broad-and-build theory to explain these relationships, this research adds to the literature on emotions highlighting how ambivalent emotions can lead to either destructive or constructive deviance behavior depending on self-other orientation. This paper also answers on calls for more research in constructive deviance (Dahling & Gutworth, 2017; Galperin & Burke, 2006; Vadera et al., 2013).
keywords: behaviors; emotions; justice; personality; voice