Team abusive supervision and team behavioral resistance to change: The roles of distrust in the supervisor and perceived frequency of change

Abstract

SummaryWhy do teams exhibit behavioral resistance to change? It depends on the behavior of team supervisors who are in charge of change implementation. Drawing on social exchange theory and the norm of negative reciprocity, we expect that teams reciprocate team abusive supervision through behavioral resistance to change and that this relationship is explained by team distrust in the supervisor and contingent upon team perceived frequency of change. To test these hypotheses, we collected three‐wave data from 124 teams in four Chinese organizations that were implementing a pay system based on team performance. The results showed that team abusive supervision was positively related to team behavioral resistance to change. Both team cognitive distrust and affective distrust mediated the relationship between team abusive supervision and team behavioral resistance to change. Moreover, perceived frequency of change strengthened the relationship between team abusive supervision and team affective distrust (rather than team cognitive distrust) in the supervisor and the indirect relationship between team abusive supervision and team behavioral resistance to change via team affective distrust. By employing a team abusive supervision perspective, this study expands our knowledge of the drivers of team behavioral resistance to change and provides insights regarding how supervisors should lead their teams during organizational change.