Is Abusive Supervision Totally Dark in Public Management? A
Multiple Linear Regression Model of Abusive Supervision, Underdog
Expectations, Self-esteem and Impression Management Behavior
Rui Zheng
a
and Mingjian Zhou
b
School of Economics and Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, China
Keywords: Abusive Supervision, Impression Management, Underdog Expectations, Self-Promotion, Ingratiation.
Abstract: Abusive supervision, that affects a large number of employees and workers, and brings huge costs to the
company, the government and society, often is regarded as a dark leadership. However, this study, based on
the impression management theory, explores the positive impact of abusive supervision on employees, that
is, abusive supervision stimulates employees' impression management behavior: self-promotion and
ingratiation. In addition, we explore the mediating role of underdog expectations between abusive supervision
and impression management behavior. We also explore the moderating role of self-esteem in this model. In
order to test the hypotheses, we propose a bi-daily longitudinal survey to collect data and design several
multiple linear regression models. In the end, we discuss implications and limitations of our argument for
theory and practices. This study puts forward feasible theoretical reasoning, data collection methods and data
processing models for testing the positive effect of abusive supervision in public management, promotes the
diversified understanding of abusive supervision in the field of management, and provides enlightenment for
management practice.
1 INTRODUCTION
Abusive supervision is generally regarded as the dark
or destructive side of leadership supervision behavior
(Aryee, Chen, Sun, Debrah, 2007; Tepper, 2007). It
depicts “the extent to which supervisors engage in the
sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal
behaviors, excluding physical contact” (Tepper,
2007). Because of its universality in the workplace
and its negative impact, abusive supervision has
attracted the attention of scholars (Crystal, Farh,
Zhijun, Chen, 2014). Considering that abusive
supervision is dark leadership, many scholars'
research mainly starts from its dark side, to show its
negative impact on organization and employee. For
the individual victim- employees, abusive
supervision will cause more negative feedback
behaviors (Tepper, Henle, Lambert, Giacalone,
Duffy, 2008; Hoobler & Brass, 2006) and reduce out
of role behaviors within the organization (Zellars,
a
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6132-3458
b
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9395-9656
Tepper, Duffy, 2002; Aryee, Sun, Zhen, Debrah,
2008).
Previous studies focused on the negative impact
of abusive supervision, identified it as a completely
dark leadership trait. However, the paradox and
diversity of it are ignored, that is, under specific
circumstances or conditions, abusive supervision may
also lead to positive results. Recently, empirical study
found that employees under abusive supervision
would increase their supervisor-directed helping
behavior due to self-blame and guilt (Troester and
Quaquebeke, 2020). A few scholars also speculate
that abuse management may also evoke
organizationally productive subordinate responses
(Ferris, Zinko, Brouer, Buckley, Harvey, 2007).
However, few empirical studies have been done and
the mechanism through abusive supervision affect
positive outcome has not been discussed by scholars
in depth. Ignoring the possible positive aspects of
abusive supervision hinders the comprehensive
understanding of this kind of leadership behavior,
which means that managers may be too sensitive to
Zheng, R. and Zhou, M.
Is Abusive Supervision Totally Dark in Public Management? A Multiple Linear Regression Model of Abusive Supervision, Underdog Expectations, Self-esteem and Impression Management
Behavior.
DOI: 10.5220/0011149200003437
In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Public Management and Big Data Analysis (PMBDA 2021), pages 5-10
ISBN: 978-989-758-589-0
Copyright
c
2022 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
5
the negative impact of abuse supervision in
workplace.
Based on the impression management theory, this
study attempts to explore the positive impact of
abusive supervision and constructs a mechanism
model about the impact of abusive supervision on
impression management behavior. The research
contents of this paper are as follows: firstly, explore
the positive impact of abusive supervision on
employees, that is, abusive supervision stimulates
employees' impression management behavior;
secondly, explore how abusive supervision has a
positive impact, that is, how the relationship between
abusive supervision and impression management
behavior is mediated by underdog expectation and
moderated by self-esteem. The research framework of
this paper is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Research framework.
2 THEORETICAL
BACKGROUND AND
HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT
2.1 The Effect of Abusive Supervision
on Impression Management
Behavior
Impression management theory suggests that, abusive
supervision can stimulate people’s motivation to try
to manage and control others’ impression of
themselves. This motivation further guides
subordinates to carry out impression management
behavior. Based on the previous studies on
impression management, several tactics that people
use to enhance their images at work have been
identified. Impression management tactics are
typically categorized as other-focused or self-focused
tactics (Mcfarland, Yun, Harold, Viera, & Moore,
2005). When other-focused tactics used, they may
make the target feel good about him or herself or
show that one holds beliefs, feelings, and values
similar to the target, which is typically shown as
ingratiation. Self-focused tactics are directed at
oneself to make it appear that one has relevant skills
and possesses other positive qualities, which is
typically shown as self-promotion (Ingold,
Kleinmann, KNig, & Melchers, 2015). These two
tactics respectively represent that employees seek to
be viewed as likable and competent (Bolino, 1999).
Leaders play an important role in helping
employees clarify roles (Chen & Bliese, 2002). When
leaders adopt abusive behavior, employees will tend
to clarify their role as a low ability and feel the decline
of their positive image. Based on the impression-
management motivation model, people are more
motivated to impression-manage when the
impressions they make are relevant to the fulfillment
of one or more of the goals (Leary & Kowalski,
1990). Employees usually pay more attention to
work-related goals in the working environment. As
the owner of greater power in the work team, leaders
are closely related to the realization of employees'
personal work goals, such as work resource
allocation, promotion, salary. Therefore, employees
will tend to think that their image in the hearts of
leaders is highly correlated with the achievement of
their personal work goals so that they have a stronger
motivation to carry out impression management
tactics. On the one hand, employees will show their
relevant skills to leaders through self-promotion to
establish a good image of competence. On the other
hand, employees may adopt ingratiation tactics to
increase leaders' attention, improve their relationship
with leaders and leaders' recognition and love for
them.
A few previous studies have shown that abusive
supervision can also lead to positive behaviors
(Troester & Quaquebeke, 2020). In addition, Lukacik
and Bourdage (2019) found that abusive supervision
had a significant positive impact on the use of self-
promotion. Li, Zhang, and Gong (2018) also found
that there is a positive significant correlation between
abusive supervision and ingratiation. Therefore, we
assume that:
Hypothesis 1a: Abusive supervision will be
positively related to self-promotion.
Hypothesis 1b: Abusive supervision will be
positively related to ingratiation.
PMBDA 2021 - International Conference on Public Management and Big Data Analysis
6
2.2 The Mediating Role of Underdog
Expectation
In addition to motivate impression management
behavior, abusive supervision also changes the
employees’ perceived expectations that how
supervisors position them. Based on the impression
management theory, the target of abusive supervision
will feel the discrepancy between the image that they
believe others hold of them and how they wish to be
viewed due to the negative evaluation of leaders
(Leary & Kowalski, 1990).
Impression management theory holds that a
primary human motive, both inside and outside of
organizations, is to be viewed by others in a favorable
light and to avoid being viewed negatively (Bolino,
1999). However, supervisors who adopt abusive
behavior will engage in the sustained display of
hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors (Tepper,
2000), including threatening, humiliating, or
ridiculing followers in front of others (Aryee et al.,
2007), which is more likely to make followers feel the
negative side of their own image in the leader's heart,
resulting in a gap between the expected image and the
actual image. In the workplace, this discrepancy will
be easily shifted and reflected in the perception of job
completion and career success, that is, followers who
have been abused believe that their leaders regard
them as people with poor ability and unlikely to
succeed, all of which are conceptually similar to
"underdog expectations", which means individual’s
perception that observers see them as unlikely to
succeed (Nurmohamed, 2020). Also, considerable
theory and research suggest that the opinion or
appraisal of observers in a person’s environment
especially key observers such as superiors, will give
rise to underdog expectations (Nurmohamed, 2020;
Dutton, Dukerich, & Harquail, 1995). Thus, we
hypothesize that:
Hypothesis 2. Abusive supervision will be
positively related to underdog expectations.
So far, we have argued that abusive supervision
will be associated with more impression management
behavior as well as with a heightened sense of
underdog expectations. Because the perception that
others have low expectations of themselves is not a
positive expectation and impression, we also expect
that it will lead to impression management behavior.
Impression management is not only related to the
perception of others' evaluation and impression of
themselves, but also the core of it is to take action to
change others' view of themselves. When employees
choose the type of impression to convey, the next
thing to do is to decide how to convey this impression.
Nurmohamed (2020) argued that individuals who
believe they are seen as an underdog by others, will
generate motivation to prove others are wrong,
leading them to work harder to perform better, which
behavioral response is similar to self-promotion.
Although there is no relevant empirical research to
indicate that underdog expectations will lead to
ingratiation, we believe that the tactics to change
others' low expectations for themselves is similar to
the impression management tactics, which can be
categorized as other-focused or self-focused tactics.
Employees can make leaders feel happy or generate
"similar to me" effect through ingratiation, so as to
improve leaders' expectations of themselves.
Considered together, in addition to its direct effect on
impression management behavior, we expect that
abusive supervision will influence impression
management behavior indirectly via underdog
expectations. Consistent with these arguments, we
hypothesize:
Hypothesis 3a. Underdog expectations will be
positively related to self-promotion.
Hypothesis 3b. Underdog expectations will be
positively related to ingratiation.
Hypothesis 4a. Underdog expectations will
partially mediate the relationship between abusive
supervision and self-promotion.
Hypothesis 4b. Underdog expectations will
partially mediate the relationship between abusive
supervision and ingratiation.
2.3 The Moderating Role of Self-esteem
Previous research shows that not all people respond
to underdog expectations in the same way. Employees
with high self-esteem - that is, employees who believe
they are capable, important, successful and valuable -
may be more vulnerable to behavior and perceived
tendencies. Leary et al. (1995) believe that one
function of self-esteem is to provide a relatively fast
and automatic evaluation of the response to
acceptance or rejection by others, that is, self-esteem
is an indicator of the quality of a person's social
relationship about acceptance and rejection. As an
interpersonal relationship indicator, the function of
self-esteem is to monitor the degree of acceptance and
exclusion of individuals by others, and promote
people to act in some way to minimize the possibility
of exclusion or rejection.
Leary and Kowalski (1990) pointed that the
degree of discrepancy between the image one would
like others to hold of oneself and the image one
believes others already hold will motivate impression
management. People with high self-esteem think they
Is Abusive Supervision Totally Dark in Public Management? A Multiple Linear Regression Model of Abusive Supervision, Underdog
Expectations, Self-esteem and Impression Management Behavior
7
are capable and successful. They are eager for others'
recognition and acceptance of themselves, rather than
looking down or refusing. When they are abused by
leaders, the perceive of the collapse of their positive
image will be more serious. This tendency is likely to
strengthen the impression management behavior
caused by “underdog expectations”. Therefore,
although all employees may be affected by underdog
expectations, we expect that employees with high
self-esteem will promote them to take more effective
actions to improve their self-image by more sensitive
monitoring of their recognition. Therefore, we
assume that:
Hypothesis 5a. Self-esteem moderates the
positive relationship between underdog expectations
and self-promotion, such that this association is
stronger for those higher (vs. lower) in self-esteem.
Hypothesis 5b. Self-esteem moderates the
positive relationship between underdog expectations
and ingratiation, such that this association is stronger
for those higher (vs. lower) in self-esteem.
3 RESEARCH DESIGN
In order to test the hypotheses, we propose the
approach of research and design the model.
3.1 Sample
A bi-daily longitudinal survey that last ten days is
designed for this study. Before starting the daily
study, an initial study should be conducted to measure
self-esteem and demographics of participants. During
the daily longitudinal survey, we design to issue the
questionnaire twice a day. Abusive supervision,
underdog expectations, self-promotion and
ingratiation should be measured when respondents
are halfway through their work(T), such as during
lunch time. Underdog expectations, self-promotion
and ingratiation should be measured at the end of the
wok(T+1).
3.2 Measures
Abusive supervision (AS). We measure abusive
supervision halfway through respondents’ work using
the 10-item scale from Tepper (2000). A sample item
is “My boss ridicules me”.
Underdog expectations (UE). We measure
underdog expectations halfway through respondents’
work and after their work using 3-item scale from
Nurmohamed (2020). A sample item is “I am seen as
an underdog compared to [my coworkers] in
performing this job successfully”.
Self-promotion (SP). We measure self-promotion
halfway through respondents’ work and after their
work using 9-item scale from Ingold et al. (2015). A
sample item is “I have told interaction partners about
problems that I had to solve in order to achieve a
particular goal”.
Ingratiation (ING). We measure ingratiation
halfway through respondents’ work and after their
work using 4-item scale from Ingold et al. (2015). A
sample item is “I have praised the behavior of an
interaction partner”.
Self-esteem (SE). We measure self-esteem in the
initial study by using 14-item scale from Heatherton
and Polivy (1991). A sample item is “I'm worried
about whether I'm considered successful or failed”.
3.3 Model Design
To test the above hypotheses in the paper, several test
models are constructed.
For the hypotheses 1a and 1b, the test models are
constructed as:
SP
β
β
AS
Controlsε
1
ING
β
β
AS
Controlsε
2
For the hypotheses of mediating role of underdog
expectations between abusive supervision and
impression management behaviors, the test models
are constructed as:
SP
β
β
SP
β
AS
β
UE
Controlsε
3
ING
β
β
ING
β
AS
β
UE
Controlsε
4
For the hypotheses of moderating role of self-
esteem between underdog expectations and
impression management behaviors, the test models
are constructed as:
SP
β
β
SP
β
AS
β
UE
β
SE
β
UE
∗SEControlsε
5
ING
β
β
ING
β
AS
β
UE
β
SE
β
UE
∗SE Controlsε
6
PMBDA 2021 - International Conference on Public Management and Big Data Analysis
8
4 DISCUSSIONS
4.1 Implication
This study has some contributions to the literature.
Firstly, this study enriches the research of abusive
supervision. We consider its positive impact of
stimulating employees' impression management
behavior. Previous studies on abusive supervision
mostly defined it as destructive leadership, which will
bring a series of negative effects on employees'
cognition, emotional experience and behavior. This
study focuses on the possible positive impact of it. We
speculate that abusive supervision will cause
employees to actively express themselves, which
makes up for the shortcomings of previous studies on
the positive impact, and has certain theoretical
significance for the in-depth study of abusive
supervision.
This study also has some practical implications on
how to look upon the abusive supervision in the
workplace. Abusive supervision can also have a
positive impact in specific situations. It can promote
the positive behavior of self-promotion and
ingratiation by affecting the underdog expectation of
employees, which is more significant in employees
with high self-esteem. Managers do not need to
blindly avoid abusive supervision, and it is not a
complete bad thing to occasionally goad employees
into action by appropriate abuse.
4.2 Limitation
There are some limitations in this study. We only
explore the influence mechanism at individual level,
without considering team level factors. For example,
the extent of abusive supervision of whole team may
have a moderating effect between the individual
abusive supervision between underdog expectations.
In addition, we just put forward a theoretical model
and lacks data support. Empirical research can be
done to support and verify this model in the future.
5 CONCLUSIONS
In this study, we construct a research framework of
the impact of abusive supervision on impression
management behavior. Based on the impression
management theory, we explore how abusive
supervision affect self-promotion and ingratiation by
stimulating underdog expectations, and further
explore the role of self-esteem as a moderator. We
believe that employees can perceive stronger
underdog expectation for the abusive supervision
they experience and subsequently engage in
impression management behavior. Self-esteem can
enhance the positive effect of abusive supervision on
impression management behavior.
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