Abusively Defending My Power: When and How?
Moderating Influence of Narcissistic Traits on the Relationship of a Threat to Hierarchy and Abusive Supervision
Tim Hengeveld
Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen Masterthesis Human Resource Management
June 14, 2020
Author Note
Acknowledgements: This article was supervised by PhD student W.B. de Vries. I am grateful for his supervision during the past six months. Also, I would like to thank Dennis Wildeboer for his help in the data collection effort.
Abstract
Why do some leaders continually abuse their subordinates once their position is threatened, even though it has overwhelmingly negative effects on the performance of subordinates and eventually the organization? The current research mainly focuses on supervision-related aspects and investigates whether, and if applicable, why an endangered status may induce leaders to display abusive supervision. Specifically, I aim to show whether narcissism moderates this relationship since studies have called for examining supervisor-related moderators of the predictors of abusive supervision, and for assessing narcissism within the context of abusive supervision. I use survey data from 43 self-reports of leaders and 110 reports of their subordinates. The results show that a general power threat induces abusive supervision and that narcissism is a predictor of abusive supervision. More importantly, narcissism negatively influences the relationship between a general power threat and abusive supervision. Hence, the results indicate that once narcissistic leaders perceive general threats towards their position, they will use social, non-abusive, strategies to cope with those threats. Organisations should develop selection practices to measure the personality traits of candidates. However, since narcissistic traits are not always harmful, it is essential to decide what kind of leader is needed for the open vacancy.
Abusively Defending My Power: When and How?
Individuals are deeply motivated to gain and enhance higher-status positions; this craving for reputation is defined as a fundamental human motive (Anderson et al., 2015). Once individuals encounter circumstances which may threaten their position, they become highly motivated to reduce this threat, even if this involves abusing those who cause the threat (Kermer et al., 2006; Williams, 2014). President Donald Trump is an example of a leader who displayed such behaviour to overcome a threat to his higher-status position. On Tuesday, May 9, 2017, he fired the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation because of a continuing investigation as to whether Trump and his advisors conspired with the Russian government during the presidential elections of 2016 (Shear & Apuzzo, 2017). The president explained his reasoning to discharge the director in a letter. He declared that he felt betrayed by the FBI director due to the continuing investigation of the conspiracy with Russia, jeopardizing his position (Shear & Apuzzo, 2017). The removal of the director of the FBI by Trump provides insights into how leaders react to a threat with regard to their higher-status positions. Leaders who feel a threat to their position in the hierarchy will become highly motivated to reduce this threat. Such reduction attempts regularly yield mistreatment directed at individuals who causes this threat (Khan et al., 2018).
example, turnover, psychological distress, counterproductive behaviour and job dissatisfaction (Martinko et al., 2013; Tepper, 2000, 2007). Aside from the exponential growth in research on the negative consequences, still little is known concerning the antecedents of abusive supervision. Therefore, Tepper (2007) requested to dive deeper into the antecedents of abusive supervision, since then few studies have answered Tepper’s request and examined these predictors (Hu & Liu, 2017; Liu et al., 2012; Mawritz, Dust, et al., 2014; Mawritz, Folger, et al., 2014). These studies demonstrate that supervisors display abusive supervision when they endure mistreatment of their employers themselves or as a result of high levels of stress. Additionally, a study by Tepper et al. (2012) indicates that leaders may abuse their subordinates as a matter of strategy. The underlying objectives of this strategic abuse are: to force compliance, to manage impressions, or when subordinates violate the organisational norms and rules (Ahmad et al., 2019). Despite this study of strategical abuse, it remains undiscovered whether, and if applicable, why supervisors may employ abusive supervision as a strategy to defend their threatened higher-status position. Therefore, to get a better understanding of how and why a threatened hierarchical position can lead to abusive supervision, I propose an explanatory mechanism under which circumstances threatened leaders to engage in abusive supervision, building on previous research of Tepper et al. (2012).
In line with this, Martinko et al. (2013) calls for examining supervisor-level moderators of the predictors of abusive supervision. Therefore, to get a better understanding of narcissism within the context of abusive supervision, the current paper extends on previous research by examining whether narcissism can impact the relationship between a threatened hierarchy and abusive supervision. Additionally, the current research examines whether the direct relationship between narcissism and abusive supervision is justified empirically.
Based on these findings, the current paper addresses the following question: are
narcissistic leaders more abusive, and how does narcissism influence the impact of a threatened hierarchy on abusive supervision? The current research uses empirical research to investigate
the research question, therefore the following hypotheses are created. Firstly, I hypothesise that a threatened hierarchy will provoke leaders to use abusive supervision. Secondly, I hypothesise that narcissism has a positive effect on the relationship of this threatened hierarchy and the display of abusive supervision. Lastly, I hypothesise, based on previous studies, that narcissism leads to abusive supervision (Hansbrough & Jones, 2014; Waldman et al., 2018). I test the hypotheses by conducting several regression analyses on data from a survey study with self-reports of supervisors and self-reports of subordinates concerning the behaviour of their supervisors. The sample for the data analyses exists of 43 supervisors and 110 subordinates of 31 different organisations.
abusive supervision (Martinko et al., 2013). The last contribution is that, unlike most research on abusive supervision, the current research can be characterised as “leader-centric” (Meindl, 1990). The majority of the abusive supervision studies focuses on the characteristics of subordinates (e.g. job dissatisfaction, turnover, perceptions of abuse; see Martinko et al., 2013; Tepper, 2007; Tepper et al., 2017 for reviews). Aside from a few studies, little research focuses on supervision-related aspects of abusive supervision and therefore the aim of the present study is to focus on supervision-related aspects.
Along with the theoretical implications, the present study can give practical insights for H.R mangers. It provides a more dependable perception of the reasons why threatened leaders might supervise abusively, and may aid in the development of measures on how this kind of behaviour can be prevented in the future. Moreover, current research can give insight into the potential outcomes of hiring or promoting narcissistic people to leadership positions. Simultaneously, the adverse outcomes of hiring narcissistic leaders can be prevented, and the positive outcomes can be profited from. In the following chapters of this study, I will define the concepts based on literature, I will visualise the hypotheses in a conceptual model and I will test the hypothesises through several regression analyses. In conclusion, I will discuss the obtained results and I will discuss the theoretical and practical implications, the limitations and future research directions.
Theory and Hypotheses
Threatened Hierarchy and Abusive Supervision Threat to Hierarchy
threat(s) (Davis & Stephan, 2011).
The current study applies the concept of unstable power hierarchy from the study of Feenstra (2020) as a deepening concept of the threatened hierarchy definition. In an unstable power hierarchy, individuals can lose control over valued resources (Feenstra, 2020). The hierarchical position can become unstable when, for instance, lower-power individuals (hereafter called subordinates) climb the power hierarchy by acquiring indispensable firm-specific knowledge. Hence, the high power individuals (hereafter called supervisors) identify this as a threat generated by subordinates to the existing hierarchy. Along with the subordinate-specific threats, the power position of leaders can become unstable by harsh competition, external turbulence or by their own wrongdoings (Anderson & Brion, 2014; Fast et al., 2012). Studies confirm that supervisors are more inclined to perceive a threat to their position in the hierarchy when the status differences in a group become unstable (Scheepers & Ellemers, 2005; Scheepers, 2009). In line with these findings, Knight and Mehta (2017) indicate that in an unstable hierarchy, individuals in supervisory positions encounter more stress compared to individuals in a stable power hierarchy. Such instability causes reactions associated with challenging behaviour towards the powerless (Scheepers et al., 2015).
Abusive Supervision
supervisor as normal, whereas another subordinate can assess the same behaviour as abusive. Hence, the assessment by subordinates depends on the context of where it is made (e.g. work environment), and on the subordinate’s personality (Tepper, 2007). The second feature refers to the continuing hierarchical mistreatment of supervisors by using nonphysical hostility to demonstrate their power. The last point of the conceptualisation is that abusive supervision falls in the domain of wilful behaviour (Tepper, 2000, 2007), implicating that supervisors execute abusive behaviour with a specific purpose other than causing harm. However, other studies include abusive supervision in a different domain, the domain of anti-social behaviour. These studies indicate that leaders display abusive supervision with the purpose of causing harm by, for example, criticizing subordinates in public to hurt their feelings or by invading their privacy (Martinko et al., 2013; Tepper, Duffy, et al., 2006; Yu et al., 2018). The present research includes abusive supervision in the domain of anti-social behaviour because studies of Chan and McAllister (2014) and Klaussner (2014) propose that abusive supervision arises due to the perceptions of supervisory injustice.
A study by Zhang and Bednall (2016) examines the antecedents of abusive supervision. Their study classifies the predictors of abusive supervision into four dimensions: supervisor-related antecedents (e.g. supervisors’ negative experiences or supervisors’ power), organization-related antecedents (e.g. organizational sanctions or aggressive norm), subordinate-related antecedents (e.g. political skill, supervisor directed attribution) and demographic characteristics (e.g. gender dissimilarity between subordinates and supervisors). As stated before, the current paper will focus on the supervisor-related aspects of abusive supervision. Therefore, current research defines abusive supervision as the subordinates’ perception of supervisors using a form of repeated anti-social behaviour (Tepper, 2000).
Threatened Hierarchy as a Predictor of Abusive Supervision
Leaders may tactfully and consciously use abusive supervision as a manner to decrease the perceived threats and re-establish the hierarchical order (Tepper et al., 2011). Abusive supervision arises from a leader’s inadequate abilities to control frustrating and threatening situations that appear in dynamic workplaces (Kotabe & Hofmann, 2015). Several other researchers argue that a leader’s first reaction towards a hierarchical threat is to respond with aggressive behaviour towards his or her subordinates, to maintain their superior role (Anicich et al., 2013; Fein & Spencer, 1997). A study by Tepper et al. (2012) gives an indirect impression on how a threat to hierarchy may induce abusive supervision. Their study indicates that there might be situations involving high, rather than low, subordinate performance that can lead to deception of subordinates by supervisors. High performing subordinates may threaten a supervisor’s perception of his or her place in the organisational hierarchy (Tepper, Uhl-Bien, et al., 2006). A study by Khan et al. (2018) justifies that some leaders identify high performing subordinates as threats to the current hierarchical order. These leaders are aware of their higher-status positions and are motivated to sustain the hierarchical order. In order to regain control over the high performing subordinates, supervisors may strategically abuse them by disapproving their behaviour and by imposing more appropriate behaviour suitable for their position in the organisational hierarchy (Khan et al., 2018). Several studies are supporting the argument of this strategical abuse; threatened leaders have been found to constrain talented subordinates by withholding them valuable information (Maner & Mead, 2010), or by denigrating or abusing them (Georgesen & Harris, 2006). Hence, leaders may use a form of anti-social behaviour to make them appear to be more skilled compared to the subordinates (Maner & Mead, 2010; Tepper, 2007). Based on the previous reasoning, I propose the following hypothesis: H1. A threat to the leader’s hierarchical position provokes him/her to use abusive
supervision.
Narcissism
Narcissism is, predominantly, characterised as a grandiose sense of self-importance (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Furthermore, narcissistic individuals are individualistic, overconfident and view themselves in exceedingly favourable terms (Campbell et al., 2004). Tepper (2007) shows this in his research; he defines narcissism as a personality disorder associated with an unrealistically high exaggerated self-view. Other studies indicate that narcissists fantasize about fame (Raskin & Novacek, 1991), are motivated to have power (Rosenthal & Pittinsky, 2006), respond to criticism and feedback with fury and self-enhancement (Campbell et al., 2000), have a lack of empathy, seek adoration, and belittle others when their pride is threatened (Judge et al., 2006; Stucke & Sporer, 2002). A study of Judge LePine and Rich (2006) confirms that self-glorification and belittling of others are symbols of narcissism.
The Moderating Influence of Narcissism
expectations (Sijtsema et al., 2009). When subordinates perform successfully, narcissistic leaders will take credits for these achievements. Secondly, higher-status leaders are often recognized as competent and qualified leaders, even if they lack expertise, which is relevant for narcissists as they want to maintain a feeling of self-importance (Morf et al., 2000). A study by Raskin et al. (1991) supports these findings. They argue that narcissistic individuals use self-enhancement for two reasons: a defensive reason, the desire to sustain grandiose self-perception and a non-defensive reason, for their self-confidence. Furthermore, de Vries and Miller (1985) confirm that leaders with narcissistic traits are driven by their own selfish needs for power and admiration. Therefore, narcissistic individuals are assumed to be more involved in unethical behaviour than non-narcissists (Campbell et al., 2002; Judge et al., 2006; Mumford et al., 2001). A few scholars have, in line with these findings, hypothesised that the tendency of narcissists to act in self-important and authoritative ways could make them sensitive to engage in abusive or destructive behaviour as leaders (Krasikova et al., 2013; Martinko et al., 2013; B. Tepper, 2007), specifically once their egotism, defined as passionately thinking well of oneself, is threatened (Bushman & Baumeister, 1998).
narcissistic leaders interpret subordinates who are working late as unfavourable. They assume that this, desirable behaviour, occurs because subordinates were incapable of completing their tasks during the regular working hours (Sy, 2010, as sited in Hansbrough & Jones, p.216). Taking the perceptions of incompetent subordinates and supervisors distrusting followers together, may lead supervisors to conclude that this incompetency is intentional and is used as a way to undermine them (Hansbrough & Jones, 2014). This eventually fuels the abusive behaviour of supervisors. Thus, if their power is threatened, narcissistic leaders will display abusive behaviour to protect their pride.
Based on these argumentations, I expect a moderating effect of narcissism on the relationship between a threat to hierarchy and abusive supervision and propose the following hypothesis: H2. A higher level of narcissism increases the positive effect of a threat to the
hierarchy on abusive supervision.
The Direct Relation of Narcissism and Abusive Supervision
dislike them too. As a result of disliking and distrusting others; narcissistic leaders are more inclined to create enemies, even in situations when there are none (Glad, 2002). This may eventually deem followers to disobey the supervisor, whereas the disobedience of subordinates may serve as a justification of abusive leader behaviour (at least in the eyes of the narcissistic leader; Hansbrough & Jones, 2014). These findings are in line with previous research on narcissistic leaders. Horowitz and Arthur (1988) observed narcissistic leaders and found that they are regularly “intensely, vengefully hostile as an exaggerated response to an insult” (p.136). Furthermore, Foti et al. (2012) demonstrate in their research that narcissistic leaders have a desire to dominate, are pushy, conceited and selfish. Hence, these characteristics of leaders induce abusive supervision.
Along these lines, I expect that narcissism directly influences abusive supervision. Therefore, I propose the following hypothesis: H3. Narcissism is positively related to abusive
supervision.
Visualisation of the Concept
The hypotheses are visualised in a conceptual model in Figure 1. A threatened hierarchy is positively related to abusive supervision; this effect is positively moderated by narcissism, and narcissism is positively related to abusive supervision.
Figure 1.
Method Sample and procedure
I investigated the hypotheses as mentioned earlier by making use of questionnaires. I used the convenience sampling method while searching for respondents. The participants were found by making use of my personal and professional network, and I contacted the companies by phone and e-mail. Once I was in contact with the participants, I distributed an introduction letter of my thesis. In this letter, I asked the leaders (during the data collection process referred to as supervisors) to make a selection of subordinates who wanted to participate in this research. Furthermore, I asked the supervisor to send back the personal information (e.g. names and e-mail addresses) of the participants. The participants received a personal link via their e-e-mail to the online questionnaire. I assured all participants of their anonymity and promised full confidentiality of their responses. Therefore, I deleted all the personal information of the participants (e-mail addresses and names) after I received the data. The survey was sent to 53 supervisors and 167 subordinates of 31 different companies, of whom 45 supervisors and 124 subordinates started the survey; which is a response rate of 76,82%. The survey could be completed between March 24 and May 11. Not all participants finished the survey; for that reason, I used a sample data of 43 supervisors and 110 subordinates.
supervisors as subordinates are shown in Table 1. As mentioned, the variables of interest are analysed by asking both supervisors as subordinates. Each supervisor had an average of 2.6 subordinates evaluating their leadership behaviour.
Table 1.
Frequencies for general information.
Frequencies Supervisors Subordinates
Mean age 34.33 (SD = 11.51) 33.01 (SD = 11.77) Male Female 74.4% 25.6% 63.1% 36.9%
Mean organisational tenure 7.00 (SD = 9.06) 5.79 (SD = 8.15) Mean positional tenure 2.91 (SD = 4.42) 4.16 (SD = 6.42) Mean working hours 39.86 (SD = 9.41) 34.11 (SD = 9.95) Notes. Supervisors’ N = 43 Subordinates’ N = 110, the means were measured in years. Measures
reverse-coded some items for some of the constructs. Lastly, I included social desirability scales to assess sources of expected biases caused by the sensitivity of the constructs.
Threatened Hierarchy
The construct threatened hierarchy exists, as mentioned in the theory section, of several antecedents. Therefore, I decided to segregate the construct in two dimensions: a general threat dimension and a subordinate specific threat dimension. I measured the general threat dimension with a scale developed by a study of Feenstra and colleagues (2020). This scale consisted of six items and was measured on a five-point Likert scale (see Appendix A for the full scale), and the supervisors had to indicate various items to what extent they felt threatened. Example measurement items for a general threat to hierarchy (α = .95, M = 1.92, SD = .91) were: “My position in the organisation” (scale varied from 1 = not threatened at all to 5 = threatened to a
great extent), and “My power in the organisation” (scale varied from 1 = not threatened at all
to 5 = threatened to a great extent). I measured the subordinate specific dimension with a scale developed by a study of Khan and colleagues (2018). This scale consisted of three items and was measured on a five-point Likert scale (see Appendix A for full scale), and the supervisors had to indicate to what extent this specific subordinate caused a threat to the existing hierarchy. Example measurement items for subordinate specific threats (α = .83, M = 1.57, SD = .74) were: “I feel a threat to the existing hierarchy by this subordinate” (scale varied from 1 =
completely disagree to 5 = completely agree), and “I feel my status will be threatened by the
performance of this subordinate” (scale varied from 1 = completely disagree to 5 = completely
agree).
Abusive Supervision
Appendix B for the full scale). The items were measured by asking the subordinates questions about the extent of certain behaviour of their supervisor. The items were measured on a five-point Likert scale varying from 1 (I cannot remember him/her ever using this behaviour with
me) to 5 (he/she uses this behaviour very often with me). Example items for abusive supervision
(α = .88, M = 1.25, SD = .36) were: “my supervisor invades my privacy’’, and “my supervisor blames me to save himself/herself embarrassment’’.
Narcissism
I analysed the narcissism construct with a scale developed by Jones and Paulhus (2014). Their scale consisted of 13 items and were asked to the supervisors in which had to indicate to what extent they agree with particular quotes (see Appendix C for full scale). The items were measured on a five-point Likert scale varying from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Example items of the narcissism construct (α = .67, M = 2.83, SD = .47) were “I know that I am special because everyone keeps telling me so” and “People often think my stories are boring (reversed item)”. However, Cronbach’s Alpha of these items were below the required .70 (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1999). Therefore, I executed a reliability analysis to see whether items could be deleted to increase the reliability of the construct. The results indicated that item 1 “people see me as a natural leader”, and item 3 “I am an average person (reserved item)” were negatively influencing the reliability(new α = .70). Therefore, I deleted these items from further analyses
Control Variables
Demographic control variables. For leaders, I controlled for gender, since previous
evidence suggests that the effects of demographic variables (age) weaken over time as the supervisors and subordinates get to know each other (Harrison et al., 1998, 2002).
For subordinates, I used tenure (in years) and age (in years) as a control variable, as prior studies have shown that demographic variables are related to the perception of the perceived amount of abusive supervision, thus seen as essential control variables (Tepper et al., 2004, 2008, 2011). Furthermore, I used subordinate’s gender as a control variable. According to a prior study of Eagly (1987), the norms and acceptable behaviour are different for women and men. Women describe themselves as interpersonal and emotional, while men describe themselves as confident and independent. This may explain why women and men report different levels of victimisation in the workplace.
Social Desirability. A previous study by Moorman and Podsakoff (1992) indicates that,
scale varied from 1 = completely disagree to 5 = completely agree)”. However, since the Cronbach’s Alpha of the items was below the required .70 (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1999), I executed a reliability analysis to see whether items could be deleted to increase the reliability. The results showed that item 2, 3 and 6 were negatively influencing the reliability and therefore deleted from further analyses. The new Alpha Cronbach of the subordinates (α= .64) can, according to a study by Hair et al. (2006), be seen as acceptable. Their study demonstrated that values near .60 can be seen as acceptable. The new reliability of the supervisors construct is poor (α= .54), even though I decided to use the construct in further analyses due to the expected sources of biases.
Subordinates Performance. A study of Hansbourgh and Jones (2014) stated that
follower performances would be viewed through a negative lens once the narcissistic supervisors perceived this performance as threatening. This finding is consistent with previous research on abusive supervision and the evaluation of the performances subordinates (Tepper et al., 2011; Walter et al., 2015; Zellars et al., 2002). These studies indicated that the performance of subordinates was related to abusive supervision. Therefore, I controlled for subordinate’s performance with the work performance dimensions of Smith and Kendall (1963). The measurement scale consisted of five items (see Appendix E for full scale) and was measured on a five-point Likert scale varying from 1 (very poor) to 5 (excellent). Example items of subordinate performance (α= .71, M = 3.92, SD = .49) were: “Indicate your assessment of (name subordinate) on the quality of work performance”, and “Indicate your assessment of (name subordinate) on the organisational commitment”.
Social Dominance Orientation. A study by Hu and Liu (2017) proposed that
with a scale developed by Pratto et al. (1994) which consisted of 16 items in which the supervisors had to indicate to what extent they agree with specific behaviour (see Appendix F for full scale). The items were measured on a five-point Likert scale varying from 1 (strongly
disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Example items of the social dominance orientation construct
(α= .76, M = 2.54, SD = .51) were: “sometimes other groups must be kept in their place”, and “it would be good if groups could be equal (reversal)”.
Results Preliminary Analysis
discussed in the discussion. Another interesting findings is that social dominance is positively correlated to both the threatened hierarchy constructs (r = .32, p = .00 & r = .33, p = .01). This implies that leaders with a high social dominance orientation are more inclined to perceive threats. Lastly, narcissism was strongly correlated to both general power threat (r = .32, p = .00) and power threat generated by subordinates (r = .46, p = .00). This indicates that a leader with narcissistic traits is more sensitive for threats than non-narcissistic leaders are.
Main Analysis
In the following paragraph, the results are given per hypothesis. I conducted two analyses for the first two hypotheses, an analysis with the general threat construct and an analysis with the subordinate specific threat construct. Foremost, I tested whether abusive supervision, the dependent variable, was normally distributed, I tested the assumption of normality by using a test of Shapiro-Wilk The Shapiro-Wilk test demonstrated a non-distribution of abusive supervision (W(110) = .68, p = .00). Based on these findings, I decided to use the bias-corrected bootstrapping in the following analyses. Field (2014) confirms that, by making evaluations of the sampling distribution from the data, bootstrapping is a way to avoid the non-normal distribution problem. I made use of 5000 bootstrap samples with confidence interval levels of 95%.
Table 2
Descriptive Statistics and Intercorrelations
Notes. Cronbach’s Alpha’s between parentheses on the diagonal. †p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01.
Variables N M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 1. Supervisor's age 2. Subordinate's age 3. Supervisor's gender 4. Subordinate's gender 5. Organisational tenure supervisor 6. Organisational tenure subordinate 7. Performance subordinate 8. Relational tenure 9. Social desirability supervisor 10. Social desirability subordinate 11. Social Dominance Orientation
Lastly, I detected the outliers for the constructs; the analysis revealed that the abusive supervision construct has four outliers. However, due to the small sample size, I decided not to delete them.
Test of Hypothesis 1
In order to test whether the first hypothesis is supported, I perform various regression analyses to predict abusive supervision based on threatened hierarchy. Results of the various regression analyses are presented in Table 3. The first model displays the prediction of abusive supervision by a general power threat without the control constructs. The results demonstrate a significant regression equation (F(1,67) = 8.52, p = .00), with an R2 of .11. Hence, the supervisor’s abusive supervision is significantly predicted by a general power threat (model 1: β = 0.30, p = 0.01). The second model demonstrates the prediction of abusive supervision by a general power threat with the control variables included. The analysis shows a significant regression equation (F(12,56) = 2.67, p = .01), with an R2 of 0. not 37. However, the p-value of the relation with the general power threat is 0.17. Hence, there is enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis (model 2: β = 0.20, p = 0.17).
supervision is predicted by a general threat to hierarchy, while the prediction with power threat generated by subordinates is rejected.
Table 3.
Regression Results for Linear Regressions
Notes. Standard Errors between parentheses †p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01
Abusive supervision
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
N 69 69 69 69 Intercept 0.01 (0.10) -0.07 (0.41) -0.05 (0.10) -0.12 (0.43) Supervisors' age 0.02 (0.02) 0.02 (0.02) Subordinate's age -0.01 (0.01) -0.01 (0.01) Supervisor's gender -0.09 (0.27) -0.16 (0.28) Subordinate's gender -0.11 (0.22) -0.05 (0.22)
Organisational tenure supervisor -0.05 (0.03)† -0.05 (0.03)*
Organisational tenure subordinate Performance subordinate
Relational tenure
Social desirability supervisor Social desirability subordinate Social dominance orientation
-0.00 (0.02) 0.14(0.10) -0.00 (0.02) -0.18 (0.12)† -0.31 (0.10)† -0.04 (0.10) -0.00 (0.02) 0.14 (0.11) 0.00 (0.03) -0.19 (0.12)† -0.38 (0.10)* -0.03 (0.11)
General power threat Power threat subordinate
Test of Hypothesis 2
In order to examine whether the second hypothesis is supported, I perform several regression analyses using the PROCESS macro by Hayes (2017). I investigate if narcissism influences the relationship between a threatened hierarchy and abusive supervision. Table 4 demonstrates the results of the various regression analyses. I test the construct of threatened hierarchy with the two threat constructs. Model 5 and 6 demonstrates the analyses of the general power threat construct excluding and including the control variables. Model 7 and 8 shows the analyses with the subordinate specific power threat construct with and without the control variables.
The table demonstrates that narcissism is marginal significantly influencing the relationship between a general threat to hierarchy and abusive supervision (model 6: β = -0.21,
t = -1.83, p = 0.07). An additional analysis of the conditional effects of the focal predictor at
Table 4.
Regression Results for Two-way Interaction
Notes. Standard Errors between parentheses †p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01.
Abusive supervision
Model 5 Model 6 Model 7 Model 8
N 69 69 69 69 Intercept -0.01 (0.10) -0.12 (0.44) 0.00 (0.11) -0.29 (0.45) Supervisors' age 0.02 (0.02) 0.03 (0.02)† Subordinate's age -0.01 (0.01) -0.01 (0.01) Supervisor's gender -0.07 (0.26) -0.14 (0.27) Subordinate's gender -0.02 (0.23) 0.05 (0.23)
Organisational tenure supervisor -0.05 (0.02)* -0.04 (0.03)
Organisational tenure subordinate Performance subordinate
Relational tenure
Social desirability supervisor Social desirability subordinate Social dominance orientation
0.00 (0.02) 0.11 (0.10) -0.01 (0.02) -0.18 (0.10)† 0.35 (0.09)** -0.12 (0.11) -0.00 (0.03) 0.14 (0.11) 0.00 (0.02) -0.21 (0.12)† -0.41 (0.09)** -0.06 (0.12)
General power threat Power threat subordinate
0.31 (0.11) ** 0.23 (0.11)*
0.15 (0.13) 0.10 (0.12) Narcissism 0.06 (0.10) -0.01 (0.12) 0.09 (0.11) 0.09 (0.12)
Test of Hypothesis 3
In order to analyse whether the third hypothesis is supported, I execute several regression analyses, as Table 5 demonstrates. Model 9 demonstrates the relationship between narcissism and abusive supervision without control variables. The analysis shows a significant regression equation (F(1,67) = 3.03, p = .09), with an R2 of 0.04. Hence, the results indicate that abusive supervision is predicted by narcissism (model 9: β = 0.16, p = 0.05). Model 10 demonstrates the same relationship but then with the control variables included and it shows a significant regression equation (F(12,56) = 2.41, p = 0.01), with an R2 of .34. However, the
p-value of the narcissism construct is 0.39 and therefore, there is not enough evidence to reject
the null hypothesis (model 11: β = 0.11, p = 0.39). To analyse which of the variables causes this decrease in significances, I perform several analyses excluding several control variables; the significance disappears when the supervisor control variables are added (model 10: β = 0.16,
p = 0.09). Based on the previous reasoning, I conclude that the third hypothesis is partially
supported.
Table 5.
Regression Results for Linear Regression.
Abusive Supervision Model 9 Model 10 N 69 69 Intercept -0.05 (0.10) -0.26 (0.45) Supervisor's age 0.02 (0.02) Subordinate's age Supervisor's gender Subordinate's gender
Organisational tenure supervisor
Organisational tenure subordinate -0.04 (0.03)†
-0.00 (0.02) Performance subordinate
Relational tenure
Social desirability supervisor Social desirability subordinate Social dominance orientation
0.15 (0.10) 0.00 (0.03) -0.19 (0.12)† -0.39 (0.09)* -0.03 (0.11) Narcissism 0.16 (0.09)* 0.10 (0.10) R2 0.04 0.34 ΔR2 0.30
Notes. Standard Errors between parentheses †p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01. Discussion
The purpose of the current study was to continue the research on the antecedents of the abusive supervision construct since researchers emphasize that still little is known about the antecedents of abusive supervision (Tepper, 2007; Tepper et al., 2017).
perceived subordinate specific threats. A study by Mead and Maner (2012) has an explanation for this finding in their research. Leaders respond in a social, instead of abusive, way towards high performing subordinates who cause a threat towards their position in the existing hierarchy. Hence, leaders want to keep the high performing subordinates as close as possible to secure their position. This may explain the significant discrepancy in how leaders react towards a general threat and subordinate-specific threats. Future researchers could use these results as a threshold to investigate the differences in a general power threat and a power threat generated by subordinates on the prediction of abusive behaviour. Another reason which may explain the discrepancy in significant results is the difference in the data. The general threat is measured on supervisor level whereas subordinate specific threats are measured at subordinate level. Hence, the data consisted of one general threat for each supervisor and a subordinate-specific threat for each subordinate. Future research should avoid this difference in collected data by randomly selecting a sample of respondents which consists of one supervisor and one subordinate.
and flaunt their competencies. Thus, instead of being abusive, narcissistic leaders may handle threats in a more humane way. Moreover, it should be noted that the current paper did not find evidence of this negative interaction effect on subordinate-specific threats. Therefore, a direction for future research is to validate whether my claim holds that narcissism is negatively influencing the relationship between a general threat towards the hierarchy and abusive supervision. Additionally, Grijalva and Newman (2015) proclaim that not all facets of narcissism are related to unfavourable behaviour. There may be a facet of narcissism which induces this negative moderating effect of narcissism on the relationship of a threatened hierarchy and abusive supervision. Future research should examine more thoroughly what the moderating role of narcissism is and investigate what causes this adverse effect and which facets of narcissism causes this effect.
The last finding is that abusive supervision is predicted by the narcissistic threats of leaders. This finding is in line with prior research of Hansbourg and Jones (2014), Waldman et al. (2018) and helps the study to understand the influence of narcissism on abusive supervision. Narcissism contains several facets (e.g. motivated to have power or seek adoration). As mentioned before, narcissistic leaders may display less abusive behaviour than non-narcissistic leaders once they perceive threats to their hierarchy. Which may assume that facets of narcissism related to the power hierarchy (e.g. egotism) may be related to favourable behaviour, while other facets as antipathy or sense of grandiosity are related to unfavourable behaviour (Grijalva & Newman, 2015; Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). Future research should enhance these findings and investigate the effect of the different facets of narcissism on abusive behaviour, and examine which facets of narcissism reduces the motivation to behave in abusive ways.
Theoretical Implications
Tepper et al., 2017). The current paper contributes to the understanding of abusive supervision and its antecedents in various meaningful ways.
The first contribution is that the present paper focuses on supervision-related aspects, whereas previous studies on abusive supervision mainly focused on the characteristics of subordinates. Moreover, the present study answers the call for assessing supervisor-related moderators on the predictors of abusive supervision (Martinko et al., 2013). The current paper extends the abusive supervision literature by helping to explain when and how leaders engage in abusive supervision, which is an essential finding since it is known that abusive supervision has overwhelmingly adverse effects (Tepper, 2007; Tepper et al., 2017).
The second contribution is that the current research demonstrates when and under what kind of conditions supervisors display abusive behaviour to defend their higher-status position. This focus on supervisor-related predictors of abusive supervision extends research on the interactions of power and status as antecedents of supervisors using abusive behaviour in sustained ways (Georgesen & Harris, 2006; Hu & Liu, 2017; Williams, 2014). Furthermore, this finding answers the call of Tepper et al. (2012) to expand research on the circumstances that may lead to abusive supervision. A few studies have answered the call of Tepper et al. (2012) and found that leaders may induce abusive supervision as a strategy to convey their higher hierarchical status (Ferris et al., 2007; Harms et al., 2007; Shao et al., 2011). The present paper enhances on these findings by stating that leaders use abusive supervision not only to communicate their higher hierarchical status but also to defend their hierarchical position.
and through their way of thinking seem to view their behaviour as acceptable. The present paper extends this finding and tries to explain that it is more complicated than a mechanism of self-enhancement. The current study justifies that narcissistic leaders indeed engage in more abusive behaviour than non-narcissistic leaders; however, once they perceive threats towards their organisational position, narcissistic leaders react on a more social manner. That narcissistic leaders react on a more humane way can be explained by the fact that not all facets of narcissistic leaders are related to unfavourable behaviour. The current paper is one of the first studies to suggest that once narcissistic leaders perceive general threats towards their hierarchy they will use social strategies to cope with those threats. Moreover, the current paper did not found supporting evidence whether narcissism is influencing the relationship of threats generated by subordinates and abusive supervision, which implies that the reaction of narcissistic leaders towards perceived subordinate-specific threats does not significantly differ from non-narcissistic leaders.
Practical Implications
Several scholars have demonstrated the practical importance of understanding abusive supervision. For example in the United States the impact of abusive supervision on the businesses led to an estimated cost of $23.8 billion annually, and it affects roughly 13.6% of the employees (Tepper, 2007; Tepper et al., 2006). Therefore, it is essential to avoid, lower or eliminate abusive supervision in organizational contexts.
rules that form right behaviour and attitudes and determine standards against which employees can appraise the correctness of their actions (Feldman, 1984).
Organisations, and in specific the talent acquisition managers, can develop selection practices which measures the personality traits of the candidates. These practices can identify the dark triad, including negative narcissistic characteristics. For example, recruiters can focus their observation on the emphatic abilities of the candidates during an assessment, to judge how the candidate takes risky challenges and how the candidate celebrates successes. However, since narcissistic characteristics are not always harmful, it is essential to decide what kind of leader is needed for the open vacancy.
Limitations and Directions for Future Research
In this last section, I will address several limitations of the current study, and I will provide objectives for future research.
A significant limitation of the current study is the low response rate and the considerable amount of missing data which may affect the findings. The data was gathered in times of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. This crisis engendered many respondents to abort their engagement in the present study, which eventually influenced the sample size. As a consequence of the small sample size, I decided to keep outliers the analyses which made it difficult to test the hypotheses compellingly.
during the crisis. Assuming that the crisis has influenced the behaviour of the respondents and may subsequently have led to different responses, this is a cross-sectional method issue. Thus, future research should make use of the longitudinal study to prevent this decrease in validity. Furthermore, future researchers should, during their longitudinal study, control for unexpectedly occurring external crises like the COVID-19 pandemic in order to get a more accurate view of the measurement items.
In line with the validity limitation, the present study used the convenience sampling method while searching for respondents. All approached participants belong to the private network of the researcher and do not represent the entire population. Moreover, I asked the participating leaders to choose their own subordinates to participate in this research. This way of sampling may have to lead the leaders to select the subordinates with whom they have a good relationship. The results confirms this assumption and indicates several positive correlations between the demographic constructs of supervisors and subordinates (e.g. the supervisor’s tenure is positively correlated to the subordinate’s tenure). This indicates that leaders selected subordinates with whom they have many similarities with, and may have affected the validity of the sample in a negative way. Therefore, it can be assumed that convenience sampling is not a reliable method for making assumptions about the entire population (de Leeuw, 2012). Future research should avoid these selection biases by randomly selecting a sample of respondents. This probability sampling method is widely seen as the gold standard for sampling. This method reduces the coverage error and therefore is an appropriate condition for statistical validity (de Leeuw, 2012).
desirability scale of Strahan and Gerbasi (1972) to the analyses. Unfortunately, according to Nunnally and Bernstein (1999), the Cronbach's Alpha for both supervisors' social desirability as subordinates' social desirability was insufficient. The unreliability of both measures made it hard to forecast whether social desirability influences the sensitivity of the information asked in the current research. Future research should use a different scale with higher reliability or design a new scale. With a more reliable scale of social desirability, a more valid measurement can be performed to examine whether social desirability controls sensitive information as, for example, abusive supervision and narcissism.
A direction for future research is to investigate subordinate-specific threats and abusive behaviour further. The current paper found evidence to support that a general threat to hierarchy induces abusive supervision, while it did not found evidence that the performance of subordinates generates threats. A study by Khan et al. (2018) did found evidence that the high performance of subordinates may trigger leaders to display abusive behaviour in order to re-establish the power hierarchy. However, their research was dedicated to examining whether there was a curvilinear relationship between abusive supervision and performance of subordinates. Their paper assumes that there is a tipping point where the performance of subordinates may induce abusive behaviour. The present study investigated how and when high performing subordinates may provoke supervisors to become abusive, however; it did not investigate the assumed tipping point. Future research should investigate this tipping point and how it predicts abusive supervision.
Conclusion
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