The Roles of Workplace Ostracism and Perceived Power in Predicting Abusive Supervision

초록

This study aims to provide a novel perspective on why and how abusive supervision originates. Drawing upon reactance theory which argues that restrictions on individuals' desired behavior cause a threat to their sense of control and, in turn, invokes the threatened individuals' reactance, we propose that supervisors' experience of being ostracized by peer coworkers thwarts the ostracized supervisors' sense of control, eventually triggering their abusiveness toward subordinates. We further suggest that supervisors' perception of their power is a critical boundary condition of this mediation mechanism, such that for those supervisors with weaker, rather than stronger, perceived power, the ostracized experience damages their sense of control in a greater extent and thus causes more severe abusive supervision. In Study 1, using an experimental design with manipulations of workplace ostracism by peer coworkers and perceived power, we find support for our moderated mediation model. Study 2 replicates the findings with field survey data from South Korea. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our research.

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