Supervisors' emotional exhaustion and abusive supervision: The moderating roles of perceived subordinate performance and supervisor self‐monitoring

• Date: 01 October 2017
• Author: Frank Walter,Catherine K. Lam,Xu Huang
• Published date: 01 October 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2193

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Supervisors' emotional exhaustion and abusive supervision: The

moderating roles of perceived subordinate performance and

supervisor self‐monitoring

Catherine K. Lam

1

|Frank Walter

2

|Xu Huang

3

1

Department of Management, City University

of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong

2

Department of Organization and

Human Resource Management, Justus‐

Liebig‐University Giessen, Giessen, Germany

3

Department of Management, Hong Kong

Baptist University, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Correspondence

Catherine K. Lam, Department of

Management, City University of Hong Kong,

Kowloon, Hong Kong.

Email: mg.cat@cityu.edu.hk

Summary

Drawing from conservation of resources theory, this study aims to create new knowledge on the

antecedents of abusive supervision. Results across 2 independent field studies within a

manufacturing context (Study 1) and a customer service context (Study 2) consistently demon-

strated a 3‐way interaction pattern, such that supervisors' experiences of emotional exhaustion,

perceived subordinate performance, and self‐monitoring were jointly associated with subordi-

nates' abusive supervision perceptions. A supplementary scenario experiment further corrobo-

rated this pattern. Together, the present studies illustrate a contingency model of abusive

supervision's origins, highlighting emotional exhaustion as an important risk factor that is partic-

ularly likely to trigger abusive behavior among supervisors with lower (rather than higher) self‐

monitoring who are faced with a relatively underperforming subordinate. As such, this research

advances the abusive supervision literature by offering new insights into the complex resource

conservation processes that may give rise to subordinates' abuse perceptions.

KEYWORDS

abusive supervision, emotional exhaustion, self‐monitoring

1|INTRODUCTION

Research suggests that supervisors exhibit aggressive behavior toward

their subordinates with disconcerting frequency (Schyns & Schilling,

2013; Tepper, 2007). In the last two decades, scholars have predomi-

nantly considered abusive supervision as an intensive form of such

undesirable leadership, denoting subordinates' perceptions of their

supervisors' sustained nonphysical hostility (e.g., Martinko, Harvey,

Brees, & Mackey, 2013; Tepper, 2000).

1

A substantial body of litera-

ture has illustrated the negative consequences associated with abusive

supervision, both for subordinates' psychological well‐being and for

their performance outcomes (for reviews, see Krasikova, Green, &

LeBreton, 2013; Mackey, Frieder, Brees, & Martinko, in press;

Martinko et al., 2013; Schyns & Schilling, 2013).

More recently, researchers have paid increasing attention to the

origins of abusive supervision (e.g., Byrne et al., 2014; Tepper, Moss,

& Duffy, 2011; Walter, Lam, Van der Vegt, Huang, & Miao, 2015). An

important explanatory approach has highlighted supervisors' resource

deficits as a critical antecedent, such that abusive supervision may

occur more frequently if a supervisor lacks the capacity to effectively

inhibit, override, or refrain from acting upon behavioral impulses

(Wang, Sinclair, & Deese, 2010). Accordingly, scholars have linked indi-

cators of resource deprivation (i.e., depressive symptoms, anxiety, and

workplace alcohol consumption, Byrne et al., 2014, as well as ego

depletion, Courtright, Gardner, Smith, McCormick, & Colbert, 2016;

Joosten, van Dijke, van Hiel, & De Cremer, 2014) with supervisors'

abusive and deviant acts. When one extrapolates from these findings,

it seems plausible to conceptualize abusive supervision as a supervi-

sor's reaction to experiences of work stress and excessive job

demands, such that supervisors are more likely to exhibit abusive

behavior if they are emotionally exhausted from their work.

Interestingly, however, we are not aware of empirical studies

directly examining the relevance of supervisors' emotional exhaustion

(i.e., an intense and enduring lack of emotional and physical resources;

Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001; Wright & Cropanzano, 1998) for

subordinates' abusive supervision perceptions. This is an important

gap in our understanding, given that scholars have highlighted

1

Throughout this article, we use the term abusive supervision to denote subordi-

nates' perceptions of abusive supervisory behavior.

Received: 25 January 2016 Revised: 15 March 2017 Accepted: 16 March 2017

DOI: 10.1002/job.2193

J Organ Behav. 2017;38:1151–1166. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job 1151

numerous job demands and stress factors that may render supervisory

positions highly exhausting (Gardner, Fischer, & Hunt, 2009; Humphrey,

Pollack, & Hawver, 2008). Moreover, research has shown that supervi-

sors' emotional exhaustion goes along with important consequences for

both subordinates and the organization, including employees' well‐

being and task performance (Lam, Huang, & Janssen, 2010). Thus, fur-

ther examination of emotional exhaustion's role appears critical to more

fully understand the etiology of abusive supervision.

In particular, we believe the emotional exhaustion‐abusive supervi-

sion linkage is more complex than one might initially expect. On the one

hand, research has emphasized individuals' resource deprivation as a

proximal cause of aggressive behavior (e.g., Marcus & Schuler, 2004;

Thau & Mitchell, 2010). On the other hand, it seems unlikely that emo-

tional exhaustion will inevitably trigger abusive acts toward all subordi-

nates and among all supervisors. Beyond lashing out, there are

alternative behavioral options even for exhausted supervisors (e.g.,

withdrawal; Cole, Bernerth, Walter, & Holt, 2010), such that a supervi-

sor's exhaustion may not translate into subordinates' abuse perceptions

in all circumstances (DeWall, Baumeister, Stillman, & Gailliot, 2007).

Moreover, abusive supervision is counternormative in many organiza-

tions (Inness, LeBlanc, & Barling, 2008), and even exhausted supervi-

sors may therefore be motivated to avoid such behavior. Hence, it

seems important to further investigate crucial boundaryconditions that

may explain when a supervisor's emotional exhaustion will instigate his

or her abusive behavior toward a subordinate.

We draw from conservation of resources (COR) theory

(Halbesleben, Neveu, Paustian‐Underdahl, & Westman, 2014; Hobfoll,

1989) to address this issue. This theory suggests that individuals are

motivated to obtain, retain, and protect valuable resources. When

faced with resource shortages, individuals therefore typically eschew

further resource expenditure to defend their remaining resources

(Hobfoll, 2001; Hobfoll & Shirom, 2001). Scholars have depicted with-

standing hostile and aggressive impulses, in particular, as an effortful

process that requires self‐regulatory resource investment and, thus,

drains individuals' resource base (e.g., Christian & Ellis, 2011; Marcus

& Schuler, 2004; Stucke & Baumeister, 2006). As such, it seems plausi-

ble that exhausted supervisors are less likely to use their remaining,

limited resources to counteract abusive tendencies. Importantly, how-

ever, this argumentation simultaneously rests on two key assumptions.

First, withholding aggressive acts requires self‐regulatory resource

investment only if an individual experiences a stimulus for such behav-

ior in the first place (e.g., a provocation; DeWall et al., 2007). Hence, an

exhausted supervisor's unwillingness to invest further resources

should trigger abusive acts only if the supervisor faces an aggressive

impulse. In supervisor–subordinate interactions, a subordinate's per-

formance may be critical in this regard (Walter et al., 2015). Relatively

low‐performing subordinates, in particular, may appear as “frustrating,

aggravating, and annoying”and, thus, as deserving targets for supervi-

sor hostility (Tepper et al., 2011, p. 283). Consequently, we expect that

supervisors may perceive lower subordinate performance as a source

of provocation and frustration that can trigger aggressive impulses.

Exhausted supervisors should be less motivated to invest the self‐

regulatory resources required to withstand these impulses and, thus,

are particularly likely to lash out toward perceived low‐performing

subordinates.

Second, COR scholars have emphasized that individual differences

may critically shape individuals' responses to resource shortages

(Halbesleben et al., 2014; Hobfoll, Freedy, Lane, & Geller, 1990). Indi-

viduals suffering from resource deficits may nevertheless invest fur-

ther resources to preserve social functioning, for example, if they are

sufficiently motivated to do so (Hagger, Wood, Stiff, & Chatzisarantis,

2010). Hence, even if an exhausted supervisor experiences an aggres-

sive stimulus, abusive supervision is unlikely to result if the supervisor

is highly motivated to maintain normative conduct. The supervisor

may, then, be willing to utilize whatever resources are left at his or

her disposal to prevent abusive, counternormative acts (cf. Joosten

et al., 2014). A motivational factor of particular relevance, in this

regard, is supervisors' self‐monitoring (Day, Shleicher, Unckless, &

Hiller, 2002; Zaccaro, Kenny, & Foti, 1991). This trait entails sensitivity

to social cues, concern for social appropriateness, and strong motiva-

tion to adapt one's behavior in line with normative expectations

(Gangestad & Snyder, 2000). Hence, we propose that supervisors

higher on self‐monitoring are more motivated to avoid abusive super-

vision (as compared with supervisors lower on self‐monitoring) even

when they experience emotional exhaustion and face a relatively

low‐performing subordinate.

Taken together, this study builds on COR theory to develop a con-

tingency model of the linkage between supervisors' emotional exhaus-

tion and subordinates' perceptions of abusive supervision. As shown in

Figure 1, we propose a three‐way interactive relation that casts per-

ceived subordinate performance and supervisor self‐monitoring as joint

boundary conditions. We predict that a supervisor is most likely to lash

out toward a subordinate if the supervisor (a) is emotionally exhausted

(thus suffering from resource deficits), (b) faces an underperforming

subordinate (thus experiencing an aggressive impulse), and (c) exhibits

relatively low self‐monitoring (thus lacking motivation to maintain nor-

mative conduct). We test this model across two independent field stud-

ies and a supplementary scenario experiment.

Beyond illustrating the potential role of supervisors' emotional

exhaustion, this research aims to advance a novel, comprehensive view

on the resource conservation processes underlying the emergence of

abusive supervision. By illustrating perceived subordinate performance

and self‐monitoring as key boundary conditions, our studies reveal a

rather complex picture that can explain (a) why exhausted supervisors

are more likely to lash out toward some subordinates than towards

others and (b) why some supervisors are better able than others to pre-

vent their emotional exhaustion from triggering abuse perceptions. In

doing so, we highlight the utility of COR theory as an important con-

ceptual approach that sheds light on critical contingencies underlying

emotional exhaustion's relationship with abusive supervision.

2|THEORY AND HYPOTHESIS

DEVELOPMENT

2.1 |Supervisors' emotional exhaustion as a basis for

abusive supervision

The basic tenet of COR theory is that “individuals strive to retain, pro-

tect, and foster those things that they value”(Hobfoll, 2001, p. 341;

1152 LAM ET AL.