Supervisory Abuse of High Performers: A Social Comparison Perspective

Abstract

Prior research linking employee performance to abusive supervision suggests that supervisors have instrumental and non‐instrumental reasons for engaging in abuse while dealing with low performers in the workplace. Drawing on social comparison theory, we argue that high‐performing subordinates can make supervisors envious, which in turn leads to abusive supervisory behavior. Furthermore, we hypothesize supervisor social comparison orientation as a key boundary condition for the indirect positive effect of subordinate performance on abusive supervision through supervisor envy; that is, supervisors are more likely to abuse high performers when the supervisors’ social comparison orientation is high. A multi‐source, multi‐wave field study was conducted with data collected from supervisor‐subordinate dyads (N = 95 supervisors and 385 subordinates). The data supported a positive indirect effect of employee performance on abusive supervision through supervisor envy. Moreover, the indirect effect was statistically significant for supervisors with high social comparison orientation but it was not significant for supervisors with low social comparison orientation. Implications of these findings for reducing abusive supervision are discussed.

I Will Hurt You for This, When and How Subordinates Take Revenge From Abusive Supervisors: A Perspective of Displaced Revenge

“…However, we collected a total of 72 supervisors administered surveys with a response rate of 71% and 269 subordinates administered surveys with a 69% response rate. Following the prior research (e.g., see Tariq et al, 2019) on supervisor-subordinate dyadic data, only those groups were considered in which at least two subordinated rated their respective supervisors. Finally, a total of 63 supervisors and 212 subordinates with average group size 3.35 participated in this study.…”

“…Fourth, we, from the perspective of interpersonal mistreatment, focused the investigation on the relationship between abusive supervision and victims' service sabotage behavior via revenge desire at the high vs. low value of perceived supervisors' remorse. In our study, we followed recent previous studies (e.g., see Tariq et al, 2019) to rely on perceptions and didn't empirically test the interpersonal mistreatment phenomena. We called for future research to develop a comprehensive model to explore the abusive supervision and victims' service sabotage behavior by integrating actual interpersonal difference by the supervisors as they impact perceptions by subordinates.…”

Awe Guards My Creativity: The Interactive Effect of Perceived Abusive Supervisory Behavior, Dispositional Awe, and Creative Self-Efficacy on Chinese Employee Creativity

“…Davenport ( 2005 , p. 19) stated that “knowledge workers have high degrees of expertise, education, or experience, and the primary purpose of their jobs involves the creation, distribution, or application of knowledge.” We believe that these participants value the creation of knowledge and creative engagement at the workplace for their success. Knowledge workers have also been shown to be more susceptible to abuse from supervisors than their counterparts who have lesser credentials (Tepper, 2007 ; Tariq et al, 2019 ).…”

Cost of Serving Others: A Moderated Mediation Model of OCB, Ego Depletion, and Service Sabotage

“…Thus, Hypothesis 2a is supported. Besides, we followed the work of Ahmad et al (2019); Butt et al (2019), Tariq et al (2019), and Shillamkwese et al (2019) to conduct the simple slop test to plot the moderating effect of PsyCap on the relationship between OCB and ego depletion. By doing so, we found that the relationship between OCB and ego depletion is stronger when PsyCap is low (B = 0.12, t = 2.68, p < 0.001) and weaker when PsyCap is high (B = 0.07, t = 1.67, p < 0.05).…”