A study on the role of supervisor's personal values in abusive supervision: Evidence from retail organizations

Abstract

Abusive supervision is not scares in Chinese service industries. In this paper, we considered supervisor's personal values play a key role in predicting perceptions of abusive supervision. We tested our model consisting of 171 supervisor - subordinate dyads from Chinese retail organizations. Specifically, we found that in the retail industry: (1) supervisor's self-enhancement values were positively associated with subordinate perceptions of abusive supervision; (2) supervisor's conservation values were negatively associated with subordinate perceptions of abusive supervision; and (3) supervisor perceptions of interactional justice moderated the relationship between supervisor's self-enhancement values and abusive supervision. Implications for research and practice were discussed.