Perceived Unfair Treatments by the Subordinate: Its Association with the Effectiveness of Subordinates and the Mediating Role of Supervisory Forgiveness and Revenge

Abstract

This study proposes that police officers’ supervisors might be unfairly treated by their subordinates. Supervisors would respond in a forgiving or revengeful manner to unfair treatment by a subordinate, and their responses might influence their subordinates’ effectiveness. Thus, this study investigated the relationship between perceived unfair treatment by a subordinate (PUTS), supervisor forgiveness and revenge response, and subordinate effectiveness, and tested the moderating effect of supervisor affective organizational commitment. A group-based survey was conducted in a Taiwanese law enforcement organization, and 93 supervisors and 389 subordinates returned questionnaires. The multi-level analysis showed that (a) PUTS was negatively associated with supervisory forgiveness; (b) supervisory forgiveness was positively related to job performance, cooperative behavior, and proactive behavior; (c) supervisory forgiveness mediated the relationship between PUTS, job performance, and proactive behavior; and (d) supervisors with high affective organizational commitment were more likely to act revengefully toward PUTS than to those with low affective organizational commitment. The findings showed that PUTS is a meaningful construct and that supervisor forgiveness is critical to a positive social exchange between police officers and their supervisors.