The deleterious effects of abusive supervision in health-care organizations.

Purpose: Grounded on the affective event theory, this study aims to investigate the mediating effect of psychological distress in the relationship between abusive supervision and three negative outcomes, namely, solitary-oriented behavior, boreout and sabotage behavior. The study also examined the moderating of anger in the link between abusive supervision and psychological distress.

Design/methodology/approach: Data was collected from nurses working in private and public hospitals in Iran. Structural equation modeling and bootstrapping techniques have been applied.

Findings: This study confirmed that abusive supervision eventually leads to unfavorable employee outcomes via the mediation effect of psychological distress. Moreover, anger moderates the association between abusive supervision and psychological distress.

Originality/value: This research contributes to the existing service literature by investigating the consequences of abusive supervision among nurses.