Abusive supervision and employee engagement and satisfaction: the mediating role of employee silence

Abstract

PurposePrevious studies have found that abusive supervision undermines employees' work motivation and attitudes, namely work engagement and job satisfaction. However, less is known about the mechanisms by which abusive supervision negatively relates to employees' work engagement and job satisfaction. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, this study examines employee silence as a mediating mechanism linking abusive supervision to employees' work engagement and job satisfaction.Design/methodology/approachSurvey data were collected from a sample of 233 full-time employees of a large hotel service company in Taiwan. Structural equation modeling analyses were conducted to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe results showed that abusive supervision has a positive association with employee silence. Moreover, the results showed that employee silence mediates the negative associations of abusive supervision with employees' work engagement and job satisfaction.Practical implicationsThe results suggest that organizational managers should provide supervisors with leadership interventions to prevent the occurrence of abusive supervision. Furthermore, organizational managers should provide employees with opportunities to voice their concerns through the use of organizational communication and participation, which can reduce employee silence and subsequently foster employee engagement and satisfaction at work.Originality/valueThis study advances our understanding of how abusive supervision results in poor work motivation and attitudes among employees. This contributes to the literature by identifying employee silence as a suitable mediating mechanism linking the negative associations of abusive supervision with employees' work engagement and job satisfaction.

Leaving in Mascot of Silence: Organizational Determinants of Employee Turnover Intentions in Mediating and Moderating Roles of Quiescent Silence and Coworker Support in a Russian Context

“…Recent studies treat silence as a behavior (Harlos and Knoll, 2018): employees would like to remain silent in response to aggression. Since it is an avoiding yet defensive approach that cannot be assessed by the supervisor, it limits the chances that any further action can be taken against employees (Wang et al, 2020).…”

“…quiescent silence and turnover intentions. The dominant literature posits abusive supervision as a negative phenomenon resulting in a few negative outcomes such as silence (Xu et al, 2020), the lack of employee engagement (Wang et al, 2020), and employee deviance (Park et al, 2017). However, it would be CEMJ 141…”

“…The injustice perception and ethical conflict are common among service professionals -but typically investigated separately (Park et al, 2017;Rainer, Schneider, and Lorenz, 2018). So far, scholars only foreground abusive supervision as an antecedent to quiescent silence (Kiewitz et al, 2016;Xu et al, 2020), while missing other organizational level variables that form antecedents of quiescent silence other than the abusive super vision itself (Wang et al, 2020). In line with this stream of research, silence is typically studied as a consequence of abusive supervision, but quiescent silence as an outcome of organizational predictors other than abusive supervision is neglected by researchers (Xu et al, 2020).…”

“…In line with this stream of research, silence is typically studied as a consequence of abusive supervision, but quiescent silence as an outcome of organizational predictors other than abusive supervision is neglected by researchers (Xu et al, 2020). The scarcity of investigations to explore predictors of quiescent silence in research is evident in recent studies that ignore quiescent silence as a form of silence (Wang et al, 2020). Moreover, coworker support is an important element of frontline work (Kim et al, 2017).…”

Employee Reticence: Development and Validation of Its Scale

“…The self-report method was chosen mainly because of the implicit nature of ES. Lack of action in ER, intentions, and ES makes it difficult for the observers to detect behavior, therefore the selfreport method is a recommended method in such scenarios (Wang et al, 2020;Wang & Hsieh, 2013).…”