A climate for workplace aggression: The influence of abusive supervision, organizational factors, and subordinate predispositions

Using an experimental design with a sample of 271 college students, the present study applied the General Aggression Model (GAM) to investigate the individual and interactive effects of abusive supervision and a climate for workplace aggression on intentions to engage in covert aggression, workplace deviance, and anti-citizenship behaviors as well as how personality characteristics (aggressive personality, self-esteem, and self-monitoring) may moderate these relationships. Results suggest that abusive supervision and a climate for workplace aggression had a direct effect on intentions to engage in workplace aggression as compared to positive supervision and a nonaggressive climate, respectively. Organizational climate moderated the relationship between abusive supervision and three forms of retaliation: indirect expressions of hostility, organizational directed deviance, and organizational citizenship behaviors -- organization. Only explicit aggression moderated the relationship between abusive supervision on intentions to engage in direct forms of covert aggression (i.e. expressions of hostility and obstructionism) as well as the relationship between abusive supervision and climate on supervisor-directed deviance. Practical implications of the findings are discussed.