Reducing the Negative Effects of Abusive Supervision: A Step towards Organizational Sustainability

Abstract

This study aims to examine how to reduce the influence of abusive supervision on subordinates’ work alienation and psychological well-being (PWB). Integrating the perspectives of career development and resource conservation, subjective job mobility and regulatory focus were combined into two-dimensional structures to assess their moderating effects on the relationships. The study draws on a survey sample of 487 employees from the manufacturing and service industries in China. The key findings show that abusive supervision has a direct and indirect influence on PWB through work alienation. Regarding the moderating effects, only perceived interorganizational job mobility mitigates the positive effect of abusive supervision on work alienation. Interestingly, the three-way interactions that involve perceived intraorganizational job mobility–prevention focus or perceived interorganizational job mobility–promotion focus mitigate the negative effects of work alienation on PWB. From these findings, we discussed the implications of a step towards organizational sustainability.