A Resource Perspective on Abusive Supervision and Extra-Role Behaviors: The Role of Subordinates’ Psychological Capital

Abstract

Abusive supervision (perceived enduring hostile verbal and nonverbal behavior) results in a host of detrimental consequences for the individual subordinate and for the organization. In the current research, we tested whether abusive supervision relates negatively to beneficial extra-role behaviors of subordinates (individual-directed and organization-directed citizenship behaviors; OCBI and OCBO) and positively to deviant extra-role behaviors of subordinates (individual-directed and organization-directed counterproductive work behavior; CWBI and CWBO). Moreover, reasoning from a resource perspective, we examined whether subordinates’ psychological capital (PsyCap: hope, resilience, self-efficacy, and optimism) mediates these relations. PsyCap is a resource variable that is amenable to situational influences such as leadership. This makes PsyCap align with a theoretically viable, but previously not explicitly tested, mechanism underlying the effects of abusive supervision. We conducted a time-lagged, multisource study among 408 university faculty members. Abusive supervision and PsyCap were measured at Time 1 from focal participants. At Time 2, data for OCBs were collected from their supervisors and data for CWBs were collected from their peers. Results indicate that PsyCap mediated the relations between abusive supervision and OCBI, OCBO, CWBI, and CWBO. Shedding light on this process helps researchers and practitioners develop ways in which to mitigate the consequences of abusive supervision, for example, by seeking to develop PsyCap using different resources.