Is It Better To Be A Mediocre?Subordinate's High And Low Performance Leads To Abusive Supervision:A Social Comparison And Moral Exclusion Perspective

Building on prior research demonstrating that low performers provoke supervisors to elicit abusive responses at the workplace,my study develops a framework to explain when and how supervisors strategically abuse their high-performing subordinates.In particular,drawing on social comparison theory,I argue high performing subordinates instill in supervisors a sense of envy,which in turn leads to engaging in abusive supervision.Within the social comparison framework,I hypothesize social comparison orientation as a key boundary condition to outline the indirect positive effect of subordinate performance on abusive supervision through the mediator of supervisor envy,i.e.,supervisors strategically abuse high performers when social comparison orientation is high.Furthermore,drawing on moral exclusion theory,I examine cooperative goals interdependence and competitive goals interdependence as key boundary conditions to hypothesize and demonstrate the direct negative relationship between low-performing subordinates and abusive supervision.Within the moral exclusion framework,supervisors may strategically abuse low performers when(a)cooperative goals interdependence is high,or(b)competitive goals interdependence is low.Moreover,my study explores the impact of abusive supervision on subordinate's objective performance.A multi-source and multi-wave field study 1 was done with data collected form supervisor-subordinate dyads(N=42 supervisors and 150 subordinates),the indirect positive relationship between subordinate performance and abusive supervision through supervisor envy was found to be stronger when supervisor's social comparison orientation is high.Furthermore,study 2 showed the direct negative relationship between subordinate performance and abusive supervision was found to be stronger when cooperative goals interdependence is high and when competitive goals interdependence is low.Finally,study 3 revealed(a)the negative impact of abusive supervision on subordinate's objective performance(b)the conditional indirect effect of subordinate's perceived performance on objective performance via abusive supervision,contingent to the extent of cooperative goals interdependence and competitive goals interdependence.Implications for how to minimize the manifestation of abusive supervision are discussed.