Employee Unethical Behavior And Abusive Management: A Two-stage Moderated Mediation Model

As a typical indication of supervisor destructive behavior,abusive supervision refers to subordinates' perceptions of the extent to which their supervisors engage in the sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors,excluding physical contact,and has become a research hotspot in recent years.Researchers have carried on many extensive research on the origins of abusive supervision,with many research achievements,which enriches our understanding of why abusive supervision occurs.But there are still insufficient exist:(1)A growing number of studies tend to conceptualize abusive supervision as a function of situational variables(e.g.,hierarchical injustice),supervisor characteristics(e.g.,history of family abuse,low self-control,and high Machiavellianism),or subordinate characteristics(e.g.,narcissism,negative affectivity,hostile attribution style),there are very few studies to examine whether and how subordinates' own behavior might evoke abusive supervision.(2)Little research to date document the role of perpetrator(e.g.,supervisor)factors and organizational factors in understanding the antecedents of abusive supervision.Some scholars appeal to researchers to find a more balanced perspective that takes into all factors(e.g.,some factors about perpetrators and targets of abusive supervision,environmental factors)in understanding its antecedents.Based on studying relevant literatures,we propose a dual-stage moderated mediation model in which the relationship between subordinate unethical behavior and perception of abusive supervision via supervisor perpetrating abusive supervision is jointly moderated by supervisor moral ownership and team forgiveness climate,and further adopt the main research methods in the field of organization management including two experimental scenario studies and a questionnaire survey to test hypotheses,which is expected to extend the existing antecedents research on abusive supervision to some degree,increase our understanding in the emergence of understanding and provide effective advices to managers.Specifically,the main research work of this article is as follows:Firstly,we reviewed and synthesized the accumulated evidence and thus proposed our theoretical model.Through detailed research and analysis of corresponding research on unethical behavior,moral ownership,forgiveness climate and abusive supervision,we have fully explained and summarized its conceptual structure,measurement and some important results.And on this basis,we developed a dual-stage moderated mediation model,that is,supervisor moral ownership and forgiveness climate jointly moderate the separate stages of mediated relationships between subordinate unethical behavior and their perception of abusive supervision.Secondly,the present investigation used some independent studies to address these issues.In study I,we conducted two experimental scenario designs to shed new light on the role of unethical behavior as an antecedent of abusive supervision and to examine the moderating roles of moral ownership in the relationship between unethical behavior and supervisor perpetrating abusive supervision(n = 106),the moderating role of forgiveness climate in the relationship between supervisor perpetrating abusive supervision and subordinate perception of abusive supervision(n =188).In Study II,through a questionnaire survey,we collected data from 275subordinate-supervisor dyads to constructively replicate Study I findings and moved beyond the first study by examining a dual-stage moderated mediation model.The results supported our hypotheses:(1)Subordinate unethical behavior could provoke supervisor perpetrating abusive supervision;(2)Supervisor moral ownership can moderate the relationship between employee unethical behavior and supervisor perpetrating abusive supervision,i.e.,the relationship will be stronger when supervisors have a high moral ownership;(3)Forgiveness climate moderates the relationship between perpetrating abusive supervision and subordinate perception of abusive supervision,i.e.,the relationship is stronger when organizations have a low forgiveness climate;(4)And the indirect relationship between unethical behavior and subordinate perception of abusive supervision would be strengthened when supervisors moral ownership is high and forgiveness climate is low.Finally,the author analyzed the results in this current study,delineated the theoretical and practical implications,discussed the limitations and future research directions.