What Have I Done to Deserve This? Effects of Employee Personality and Emotion on Abusive Supervision

Christine Henle () and Michael Gross ()

Journal of Business Ethics, 2014, vol. 122, issue 3, 474 pages

Abstract: Drawing on victim precipitation theory, we propose that certain employees are more likely to perceive abusive supervision because of their personality traits. Specifically, we hypothesize that subordinates’ emotional stability, conscientiousness, and agreeableness will be negatively related to perceived abuse from their supervisor and that negative emotions at work will mediate these relationships. We surveyed 222 employees and found that emotional stability and conscientiousness negatively predicted employees’ self-reports of abusive supervision and that this relationship was mediated by negative emotions. Thus, employees lower in emotional stability or conscientiousness are more likely to experience negative emotions, which in turn is related to higher levels of abuse. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Keywords: Abusive supervision; Negative emotion; Personality; Victim precipitation theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:122:y:2014:i:3:p:461-474

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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-013-1771-6

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