Abusive Supervision and Employee Turnover Intention

Definitions of Study Variables

Abusive Supervision 

Abusive supervision refers to subordinate's perception of the level upto which supervisors are engaged in sustained display of hostile behaviors both verbal and non-verbal but not including physical contact (Tepper, 2000, p. 178). 

Self identity 

According to Kim and Kim (2016), self-identity refers to an individual developing the selfawareness that they are different from others and positive. Self-identity determines behaviors incarnating self-realization and is expected to lead to successful performance of actions required to get a result.  

Turnover Intention

Wunder, Dougherty and Welsh (1982) defined Turnover intentions as perceptions of employees to quit their present job. According to the definition of Tett and Meyer (1993), turnover intention may be referred as cognizant and cautious willfulness of the employee to quit the organization'.

Future Work Self Salience 

Future work self-salience is defined as the salience that characterizes how an individual easily constructs hope for work based identity with clarity (Strauss et al., 2012).

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In recent past studies are focusing more on negative aspects of supervision role and its impact using diverse outcomes (Tepper, 2007). The leaders possess talent and ability to shape attitudes and behavior of followers through professional interactions. Notably, abusive supervision is considered to be an important part of dark side of leadership, and has been among the key areas of interest for research due to its extensive existence in any industry. Tepper (2000) defined abusive supervision as anticipation of subordinates related to level of supervisor's engagement in sustained display of hostile behavior both verbal and non-verbal excluding physical contact.

The main aspects of abusive supervision include humiliating attitude, threat of job sacking and finally depriving of essential information. Additionally, examples of abusive supervision include blaming employees for others' mistakes, lying, undermining, sarcasm, berating etc. Abusive supervision has also been taken as specific type of workplace mistreatment, as it represents serious problem plaguing modern organizations owing to its volatile implications for subordinates, supervisors and overall work environment. Furthermore, this type of supervision refers to convergence of two prominent field of research: workplace mistreatment and destructive leadership.  

 In order to better define abusive supervision, four different perspectives can serve the purpose (Pradhan & Jena, 2016). Firstly, abusive supervision represents subordinate's perceptual assessment of supervisor's behavior. Interestingly, many dispositional factors may influence such subjective assessment (e.g., emotional intelligence) of the subordinate along with the context of assessment (e.g., meaning attached to work and perceived co-worker support). Secondly, abusive supervision is considered to entail sustained display of hostile behavior thus representing vulnerability of the subordinates to abuse and humiliation (Tepper, 2007). An abusive behavior has the characteristic of being regular and frequent rather than a chance happen stance, therefore scolding a subordinate for a specific offence occasionally doesn't fall in the category of abusive behavior. Tepper (2000) contained that abusive relationship will finally force either subordinate or supervisor to terminate the relationship. On contrary, it may also make the supervisor to change such behavior.

Thirdly, abusive supervisor's behavior should be either deliberate or willful (Tepper, 2007). Nevertheless, it is irrelevant to mention either such abusive behavior is meant to harm the subordinate or otherwise. From another perspective, abusive supervision is defined in terms of supervisor's intention: deliberate or unintentional rather in terms of the intended outcome the supervisor's behavior might lead to. Lastly, abuses should be non-physical which excludes all types of physical contact rather encompasses behaviors such as criticizing openly, acting in a rude manner, throwing tantrums and demonstrating inconsiderate behaviors (Bies, 2000).

Different studies have revealed subordinate outcomes of abusive supervision including attitudes such as more aggressive behaviors directed toward supervisors, coworkers, organizations and family members (e.g., Duffy et al. 2002; Mitchell & Ambrose 2007); meagre health effects, deprivation of self-esteem, psychological disorder, burnout and problem drinking and reduced job satisfaction and commitment (Duffy & Ferrier 2003).

 From a wider perspective, abusive supervision has been regarded as a widespread and costly organizational problem. According to an estimate, approximately 16 % of US workers have reported to face abusive behaviors (Schat et al., 2006) and resulted in annual organizational costs of nearly $23.8 billion. It is worth noting that pervasiveness and urgency of this gigantic organizational problem can be illustrated through such estimate of organizational cost of abusive supervision although it is a rough estimate.

 Many other researchers have empirically tested how abusive supervisor affects organizational and individual outcomes (Martinko, et al., 2013; Tepper, 2007). According to these studies, subordinates' perception of abusive supervision is positively related to emotional exhaustion, employee resistance, workplace deviance, negative affect, low leader–member exchange, family–work conflict and intention to quit and negatively associated with organizational citizenship behavior, commitment, job performance, job satisfaction and life satisfaction (Duffy et al., 2002; Tepper, 2000).  

 As stated earlier, abusive supervision yields highly adverse effects generally at organizational level and particularly at subordinate-supervisor level. It causes costs to the organization. Abusive supervision impacts employees along with damage to organizational ambiance.Abusive supervision may also bring harm to other employees as well, thus causing decline in organizational productivity. In addition, family life of victims may also be badly affected due to abusive supervision (Hoobler et al., 2006).

 It is imperative to identify adverse consequences of abusive supervision as regard to every employee so that to reduce different costs arising due to this issue. It means implications of abusive supervision do not cover supervisor-subordinate relationship; instead, these can also possibly harm other employees at the workplace but also family members.

The concept of self-identity is derived from (social) identity theory (Stryker, 1986) and depicts the degree of someone's perception about him or herself as meaningfully meeting the criteria for any given social role (Charng, Piliavin, &Callero, 1988). According to the Identity theory, identities and behavior are congruent in a stronger perceived fit between identity and a particular behavior related to a stronger intention to enact that behavior (de Bruijn & van den Putte, 2012). Kim and Kim (2016) define self-identity as one's perception developing the self awareness that one is different from others and proactive. Self-identity helps to identify behaviors incarnating self-realization and leads to accomplishment of desired actions.

 Researchers viewed turnover intention as the last and final step while making decision making before a person actually quits an organization (Steers, 1977). That is why Turnover intention is defined as behavioral intention of an individual to quit an organization. Turnover intention is the degree of an individual's plan of leaving the organization. According to the definition of Tett and Meyer (1993, p. 262), turnover intention may be referred as: 'The conscious and deliberate willfulness of the employee to leave the organization.Employees use turnover as a coping strategy of avoiding present situation. Turnover may be characterized by horizontal mobility wherein employees want leaving the organization. 

 According to identity-based perspective, According to Strauss et al. (2012), future work self-salience may be defined as individual's future salience of work based identity that may have a significant impact on the identities of employee as compared to abusive supervision within the organization. This concept also depicts how easily hope regarding work based identity is constructed. According to the Rousseau, Ho and Greenberg (2006), employees today work more vigilantly to address their financial needs and try to pursue job instead of reflexively responding to environment. In such scenario, future work based identities provide the way an employee makes efforts to attain career development (Strauss et al., 2012). 

Future work self is derived from the idea of potential selves which formulate future based facets of self-concept. Possibility of being positive or negative selves purely relies upon one's anticipation. Theoretically, potential selves can lead towards motivation based on identity having impact on current behavior in line with a person's characteristics and also geared for attaining anticipated future. (Yu et al., 2016). Among potential selves, studies have established its motivational impact on human behaviors directly inclined towards aspirations of a better career. Just for instance, according to the study of Destin and Oyserman (2010), students of a middle school having poor financial background but desirous of attaining an occupation on the base of higher education were successful in getting higher grades.  

Research Gap

Although identity holds an important position according to identity based,prior research has mainly addressed abusive leader's identity as precursor of the abusive supervisory situation (Johnson, Venus, Lanaj, Mao, & Chang, 2012). Nevertheless, how follower's identities impart role is ambiguous in relation of abusive supervision and its subsequent output despite being a crucial construct (Hogg et al., 2005). Accordingly, it is quite difficult to know how specific identity of employee imparts role in abusive supervision-outcome relationship. Therefore, there is need to study self-identity in relationship of abusive supervision-outcomes (Yu et al., 2016). 

In addition, Future Work Self-Salience provides the way an employee makes effort to attain career development. Previous studies have focused relationship of abusive supervision with job performance and then examined moderating effect of future work self-salience (Strauss, Griffin, & Parker, 2012). Interestingly, those individuals having salient hope regarding work based identity have been observed to often direct actions accordingly and more likely be less accepting to negative facets of workplace i.e. abusive supervision that is considered to be hurdle towards anticipated future identity. Previous studies suggest to focus different possible outcomes in this situation such as turnover intention and employee behaviors. Hence, there is need to study possibility of turnover intentions among employees having high level of future work selfsalience in an environment where abusive supervision prevails (Yu et al., 2016).

 Finally, this study aims to focus research gaps mentioned earlier in order to provide practical implications not only for practitioners working in the public sector organizations of Pakistan but also future researchers intending to work in this field of study.

Problem statement

The dyadic relationship structure within organizations carries vital importance due to its significant impact on individual as well as organizational level performance. This is the reason why dark side of supervision i.e. abusive supervision is considered to be highly noxious in working environment. It entails high level of danger for employees being a direct threat to selfidentity and ultimately instigates the employees to develop defensive intentions including quitting the job. Additionally, from an identity-based perspective, employees take abusive supervision a hindrance towards attainment of future work salience. Hence, examining the way how abusive supervision brings indemnities is vital along with different other factors having effect in abusive supervision - outcomes relationship.

Objective

The overall objective of the study is to develop and test anticipated model to examine relationship between abusive supervision, self-identity and turnover intentions of employees. Additionally, the future work self-salience is added as the possible moderator for the relationship of the mentioned variables in this research model.

Significance of the study

This study will primarily help to delineate the concept of abusive supervision in an organization. Since, abusive supervision may entail different shapes through which it is expressed/exercised so defining different possible abusive behaviors will also be point of discussion. The term abusive supervision is considered to be quite hostilein terms of its adverse effects on employees as well as organizational environment (Martinko, et al., 2013). All of its possible outcomes including job dissatisfaction, reduced productivity and turnover intentions will be discussed to unfold its multifacet adversity at workplace.

Secondly, this study is going to serve the practitioners to enhance their understanding about an employee's self-identity and its importance in organizational context. Self-identity shares a substantial connection towards a specific behavior. Since, identity and behavior are congruent, these shape different intentions of employees within the organization. Also, the mechanism through which abusive supervision will have an impact on self-identity of employee and thus turnover intentions will be developed still remains almost intact(Yu et al., 2016). The researchers and practitioners will gain useful information in this context through this study.

Thirdly, this study will particularly focus employees having high future work self-salience. As a point of concern, such employees always prove to be less tolerant to hostile aspects of the organization such as abusive supervision considering it as obstacle on their way to the positive future identity(Strauss et al., 2012). Possible reactions of such employees especially the likelihood of turnover intentions will be discussed for better understanding.

Key Findings

• There is a positive association between abusive supervision and turnover intention of employees.

• There is a negative association between abusive supervision and self-identity of the effected employee.

• There is a negative association between self-identity and turnover intention of employees.

• Self-identity mediates the relationship between abusive supervision and turnover intentions.

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Disclaimer: This article is an excerpt of a thesis on Abusive Supervision and Turnover Intention: Examining the Mediating Role of Self-Identity and Moderating Role of Future Work Self Salience.

Citation:

Anwar, M.K. (2017). Abusive Supervision and Turnover Intention: Examining the Mediating Role of Self-Identity and Moderating Role of Future Work Self Salience. Published MBA.

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