Bad bosses and self-verification: the moderating role of core self-evaluations with trust in workplace management

Jonathan E. Booth, Amanda Shantz, Theresa M. Glomb, Michelle K. Duffy and Ellie Stillwell

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Who responds most strongly to supervisor social undermining? Building on self-verification theory (Swann, 1983, 1987), we theorize that employees with positive views of the self (i.e., higher core self-evaluations [CSEs]) who also maintain higher trust in workplace management are more likely to experience heightened stress and turnover intentions when undermined. We argue that this subset of employees (high CSE, high trust) are more likely to feel misunderstood when undermined by their supervisor and that this lack of self-verification partially explains their stronger responses to supervisor undermining. We find initial support for the first part of our model in a study of 259 healthcare workers in the United States and replicate and extend our findings in the second study of 330 employees in the United Kingdom. Our results suggest that the employees Human Resources often wishes to attract and retain—employees with high CSE and high trust in workplace management—react most strongly to supervisor social undermining.

Keywords: core self-evaluations; self-verification; stress appraisals; supervisor social; trust in workplace management; turnover intentions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2020-03-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hrm and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in Human Resource Management, 1, March, 2020, 59(2), pp. 135 - 152. ISSN: 1099-050X

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:100839

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