ABUSIVE SUPERVISION AND TURNOVER INTENTIONS: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF DISTRUST

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ABUSIVE SUPERVISION AND TURNOVER

INTENTIONS: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF DISTRUST

Master thesis, MscBA, specialization HRM

University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business

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ABUSIVE SUPERVISION AND DISTRUST 2

Abstract

Despite recent attention to the relationship between abusive supervision and subordinates’ turnover intentions, no research has examined how distrust mediates this relationship. In this paper we proposed that abusive supervision positively influences turnover intentions, that this relationship is partially mediated by distrust, while internal locus of control both negatively moderates the abusive supervision-distrust relationship and positively moderates the distrust-turnover intentions relationship. In order to test our hypotheses, data of a questionnaire study among 224 business students of a Dutch university was used. Results from bias-corrected bootstrapping analyses indicate that abusive supervision leads to turnover intentions and that this relationship is partially mediated by subordinates’ distrust of the supervisor. On the contrary, the results provide no support for the hypothesized moderating effects of internal locus of control. Additionally, our results support previous studies suggesting that abusive supervision has serious negative consequences.

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INTRODUCTION

Recently a lot of research is done about the adverse effects of abusive supervision, showing significant effects between abusive supervision and organizational outcome variables that are related to the success and survival of organizations as well as the health and well-being of their employees. Researchers found that abusive supervision was negatively related to subordinate performance (Tepper, Moss & Duffy, 2011), organizational citizenship (Rafferty & Restubog, 2011) and organizational commitment (Schat, Desmarais & Kelloway, 2006) and positively related to workplace deviance (Wang, Harms & Mackey, 2014), psychological distress (Tepper & Lockhart, 2005), and turnover intentions (Schat et al., 2006; Tepper, 2000). Hence, it is of considerable interest to both practitioners and organizational researchers to extend the research on the abusive supervision construct.

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a consequence of abusive supervision and, in turn, may affect outcomes. Because distrust is known as a self-amplifying construct (Kramer, 1996; Lewicki, McAllister & Bies, 1998; Sitkin & Roth, 1993), once it would be effected by abusive supervision, it is expected that distrust will add to the direct effects of supervisors’ abusive supervision on subordinates’ attitudes. Combining this expectation with indications that subordinates’ distrust of their supervisors is a problem in many organizations, given findings that 68% of America’s employees and three out of four Canadian employees do not trust their managers (Davis & Landa, 1999), we thought it relevant to further explore the relationship between abusive supervision and distrust in this research.

As mentioned, many studies have shown that abusive supervision may result in major negative outcomes for organizations. Subordinates’ turnover intentions is shown to be one of these negative outcomes (Schat et al., 2006; Tepper, 2000). It was found that even a low level of abusive supervision can have an inordinate impact on the voluntary turnover process (Xu, Martinez, Van Hoof, Tews, Torres & Farfan, 2015) and that voluntary turnover is negatively related to organizational performance (Shaw, Duffy, Johnson & Lockhart, 2005; Shaw, Gupta & Delery, 2005) Moreover, Cleveland (2005) found that voluntary turnover can be a source of major expense of organizations. Because the relationship between abusive supervision and voluntary turnover is shown to be affected by turnover intentions (Griffeth, Hom, & Gaertner, 2000), we thought it would be useful to gain more knowledge about the way subordinates’ intentions to turnover are formed and to which extent abusive supervision and distrust affect this formation of intentions to turnover. Therefore, in this research we intended to investigate how abusive supervision and distrust are related to turnover intentions.

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2007). Nevertheless, relatively little research is done on subordinate-related factors influencing perceptions of abusive supervision (Wang et al., 2014), while researchers stated in their review about abusive supervision research that it would be useful to do more research on the moderating effects of personality characteristics on perceptions of abuse (Martinko, Harvey, Brees & Mackey, 2013). Besides, the existing work on subordinate-related factors is often limited to the Big Five personality traits (Wang et al., 2014; Henle & Gross, 2014; Wu & Hu, 2013) while personality traits outside of the Big Five taxonomy have received less research attention. One of these traits is subordinates’ locus of control, which is the extent to which people believe that they have control over their own fate (Ng, Sorensen & Eby, 2006). Locus of control is found to be an important determinant of the way individuals interpret the situations they encounter (Rotter, 1966). According to Wei and Si (2013), subordinates with an external locus of control seem to take supervisors’ abusiveness more personally, whereby they develop negative perceptions more quickly compared with subordinates with an internal locus of control. Because it is assumed that abusive supervision by a supervisor is strongly related to subordinates’ interpretation and the locus of control is found to be an important determinant of interpreting, we expect that subordinates’ locus of control will affect the outcomes of abusive supervision, such as the amount of distrust and turnover intentions caused by abusive supervision. During the analyses of this study, an one-dimensional ‘internal locus of control’ construct was used to describe values of locus of control, with higher values reflecting higher internal locus of control (or internals) and lower values indicating higher external locus of control (or externals).

Based on the above considerations, this research will focus on the following research questions:

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Does subordinates’ distrust of supervisors mediates the relation between abusive supervision and subordinates’ turnover intentions?

Do differences in subordinates’ locus of control affect the relation between abusive supervision and subordinates’ distrust, and do differences in subordinates’ locus of control affect the relation between distrust of the supervisor and turnover intentions?

LITERATURE REVIEW Abusive supervision

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As mentioned, many studies found that abusive supervision can negatively affect organizational outcomes and therefore may be costly to organizations. It is associated with a variety of negative outcomes, including subordinates’ unfavourable attitudes toward the job and organization, resistance behaviour, aggressive and deviant work behaviour, lower performance contributions, diminished psychological being and reduced family well-being (Tepper, 2007). Some researchers have tried to estimate the impact of these outcomes of abusive supervision. For instance, Schat, Frone and Kelloway (2006) estimated that 13,6% of U.S. workers are affected by abusive supervision, which according to Tepper et al. (2006) leads to an estimated cost to U.S. corporations of $23,8 billion annually. Although other researchers contested these specific amounts (Martinko et al., 2013), it can be assumed that abusive supervision is a serious problem for employers and employees and leads to higher costs for organizations and, because of higher costs for products and services, possibly also for organizational outsiders (Tepper, 2007). Regarding the costs for organizations, caused by abusive supervision, researchers (Tepper, 2007; Palanski, Avey & Jiraporn, 2013) argued that they are due to lost productivity, higher compensation and health insurance claims and higher employee turnover (leading to costs for recruiting and retaining a replacement).

Abusive supervision related to turnover intentions

Regarding to costs caused by employee turnover, Cleveland (2005) stated that the exit of a single employee could represent costs in the range of one and a half times the employee’s annual salary. To minimize this costs and the costs employees are faced with, it is important to reduce voluntary turnover and so it is relevant to better understand the mechanisms that cause voluntary turnover.

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variables, and attitudes (such as job satisfaction) lead to withdrawal cognitions (including turnover intentions), which in turn lead to withdrawal (including absenteeism and lateness) and finally turnover (Palanski et al., 2013). Our research model was also based on this conventional model (although it did not include the last two steps), with internal locus of control as individual difference, the abusive supervisor as contextual variable, distrust as attitude and turnover intentions as withdrawal cognition. Important to notice from Holtom et al.’s (2008) model, is the fact that withdrawal and turnover seem to be preceded by turnover intentions. Consequently, a better understanding of the formation of turnover intentions also can contribute to the prevention of withdrawal and turnover. According to Harris, Kacmar and Witt (2005) to better understand voluntary turnover, it even makes more sense to study antecedents of turnover (like turnover intentions) than actual voluntary turnover. Additionally, Griffeth et al. (2000) found that antecedents, such as the employee's intention to stay or leave the organization, remain the best predictors of voluntary turnover.

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abusive supervision can neutralize the effects of high ethical leadership. This raises the assumption that abusive supervision should not be considered in terms of high or low, but rather in terms of presence or absence. Assuming that perceived abusive supervision and turnover intentions are related concepts, the finding that perceived abusive supervision emerge suddenly, could suggest that subordinates’ turnover intentions that are caused by abusive supervision, will appear in an abrupt manner.

Above all, the above considerations brings us to the expectation that once subordinates perceive supervisors as abusive, they will have stronger intentions to leave the organization. This is formulated in the next hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1: Abusive supervision is positively related to subordinates’ turnover intentions

Distrust

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So far, little (management) research is done on distrust as a distinct concept, partly because until recently researchers conceptualized distrust as the lower end of the trust construct (Mayer, Davis & Schoorman, 1995; Rotter, 1980). In the last two decades, more and more scholars followed the plea of Sitkin and colleagues to distinguish distrust from trust and to explore their different antecedents, consequences, and process dynamics (Sitkin & Roth, 1993; Sitkin & Stickel, 1996). Many researchers found that pervasive negative perceptions and expectations of the other leads to distrust (Cho, 2006; Dimoka, 2010; Kramer, 1996; Lewicki et al., 1998; Sitkin & Stickel, 1996). A widely supported definition of distrust is “a lack of confidence in the other, a concern that the other may acts so as to harm one, that he does not care about one’s welfare or intends to act harmfully, or is hostile” (Govier, 1994: p. 240). In this research we defined subordinates’ distrust of supervisors as “A psychological state, compromising the unwillingness to accept vulnerability, based on negative perceptions and expectations of the supervisor’s motives, intentions, or behaviours.” (Bijlsma-Frankema, 2016: p. 6). We thought this definition was more appropriate for our specific research model than Govier’s (1994) definition, because it is more focused on distrust related to the supervisor-subordinate relation. Furthermore, it accentuates the psychological and perceptual elements, which play a major role in this research’s model. Additionally, by including “the unwillingness to accept vulnerability” the definition accentuates the avoidance element, which fits to turnover intentions, a factor that can be viewed as a form of avoidance (Keller, 1984).

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of amplification that drive the cycle. When negative perceptions and expectations of harm raises the perceived vulnerability to a point where actors become unwilling to accept to be vulnerable, distrust arises. Once distrust is present, it seems difficult to reverse (Gambetta, 1988; Pugh, Skarlicki & Passell, 2003) and moreover, the amount of distrust will intensify (Bijlsma-Frankema et al., 2015). These findings suggest the importance of preventing distrust in organizations, to protect the organization from serious negative consequences. Some of these possible consequences of distrust, found in the literature by Bijlsma-Frankema and her colleagues, are disbelief of information provided by, lack of cooperation with, hostility towards, conflict with and avoidance of interaction with distrusted others (Bijlsma-Frankema et al., 2016).

Abusive supervision related to distrust

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et al., 2016). Distrust is caused by perceived harmful behaviours of others, and arises when negative perceptions and expectations of harm raises the perceived vulnerability to a point where people become unwilling to become vulnerable. Assuming that abusive supervision may be perceived as harmful and vulnerability-raising behaviour, we expect that abusive supervision will be related to distrust of supervisors amongst subordinates.

Subordinates’ distrust related to turnover intentions

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Distrust as mediator

Based on above findings, we thought it worthwhile to explore the nature of the relations between the three concepts. The findings suggest that abusive supervision, as harmful, vulnerability raising behaviour, is positively related to subordinates’ distrust, and that higher distrust leads to higher turnover intentions. Based on the finding that distrust is known as a self-amplifying construct, we expected that the effects of abusive supervision on outcomes through the emergence of distrust, will add explained variance in turnover intentions to the variance explained by abusive supervision. Therefore, we formulated the next hypothesis:

Hypothesis 2: The relationship between abusive supervision and subordinates’ turnover intentions is partially mediated by subordinates’ distrust of the supervisor

Locus of control as a moderator of the abusive supervision-distrust relationship

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1997), whereby negative behaviour of the supervisor is perceived as more crucial and more quickly seen as threatening and abusive. Regarding to internals, Phares, Richi and Davis (1968) found that internals seem to have a greater willingness to take action to deal with problems suggested by feedback (Phares, Richi & Davis, 1968). Furthermore, Bowling and Michel (2011) found that internals blamed themselves for abusive behaviour of another and reacted more positively to the abuse in terms of their reported well-being than those who did not form self-directed attributions for the abuse. Therefore, we suspect that internals will distrust their abusive supervisor less quickly.

Based on the considered insights, the next hypothesis was formulated:

Hypothesis 3: Internal locus of control moderates the relationship between abusive supervision and distrust, such that the relationship is weaker if internal locus of control is high and the relationship is stronger if internal locus of control is low.

Locus of control as a moderator of the distrust-turnover intention relationship

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consider how to achieve career goals and exert more effort and persistence to overcome barriers to achieve this career goals (Ng, Sorensen, & Eby, 2006). So, we assume that once they think that their supervisor will hinder their career, individuals higher in internal locus of control will consider a voluntary turnover more likely compared to subordinates scoring lower on internal locus of control, to achieve their career goals.

The above consideration brings us to the next hypothesis:

Hypothesis 4: Internal locus of control moderates the relationship between distrust and turnover intentions, such that the relationship is stronger if internal locus of control is high and the relationship is weaker if internal locus of control is low.

Conceptual diagram

The hypothesized relations to be tested in this study, are displayed in Figure 1. The conceptual diagram is based on Hayes’ (2013) conceptual diagram of ‘model 21’.

METHOD SECTION Respondents

Respondents where 274 Dutch undergraduate business students, enrolled at a large university in the Netherlands, who participated voluntarily in this study in exchange for course credits or money. After screening the data, the finale sample consisted of 224 respondents (see the results section for details). From this final sample 46,4% was male.

Abusive Supervision Distrust Turnover intentions Internal Locus of control

+

-

Internal Locus of control

+

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Respondents’ mean age was 21,88 (SD = 2,57). 29 nationalities where included, whereof 64% possessed the Dutch nationality and 7% the German nationality. Respondents were randomly assigned to one of the two experimental conditions, 108 respondents to the distrust present-condition and 116 respondents to the distrust absent-present-condition.

Procedure

Potential respondents were approached through the email of students which were enrolled for specific courses, courses where students had to participate in a research. Before respondents started the experiment, we stressed the fact that participation was voluntary and that data would be treated confidentially.

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instance because you thought that they did not have the best intentions for you, that they did prioritize their own wellbeing over your own wellbeing, and that they would not hesitate to abuse you”. In both conditions, participants were instructed to briefly describe the situation, the context, and the person they had in mind. After answering these concrete questions about the situation they imagined, respondents completed the 8-item distrust scale. In the last part of the questionnaire, respondents completed the 6-item turnover intentions scale. We controlled for participant age, gender and tenure.

Measures

Abusive Supervision We assessed abusive supervision by using Tepper's (2000)

15-item scale. This self-report scale elicits information on the extent to which subordinates feel that they have been non-physically abused by their supervisor or to indicate the prevalence of supervisor abusive behaviours. Respondents indicated to what extent (1 = I cannot remember him/her ever using this behaviour with me; 5 = He/she used this behaviour very often with me) statements (such as: “My supervisor ridiculed me”) described the behaviour of the recalled supervisors (see Appendix A for all statements). The scale was found to have a high reliability with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0,89 (Onyishi & Nsukka, 2012).

Distrust Respondents completed an 8-item scale that was developed by

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item 4 and 6. Respondents were asked to indicate how much they agreed (1 = totally disagree; 5 = strongly agree) with statements such as “I feared that my supervisor would treat me unfairly” (see Appendix B for all statements).

Locus of control For the purpose of this study, the 28-item scale Internal Control

Index (Duttweiler, 1984) was used to measure the participants' locus of control. Researchers suggested and validated that Duttweiler’s scale is the most reliable and valid questionnaires in order to measure locus of control in many cases, validated by a high Cronbach’s alpha of 0,88 (Prihadi, Hariul & Hazri, 2012). Respondents were asked to indicate, in the blank space provided within each statement, their normal or usual attitude, feeling or behaviour (1 = rarely; 5 = usually). One of statements was: “When face with a problem I _____ try to forget” (see Appendix C for all statements). This produced a possible range of scores from 28 to 140 with higher scores reflecting higher internal LOC and lower scores indicating higher external LOC.

Turnover Intentions This study used a 6-item scale developed by Bothma and Roodt

(2013). This instrument measures employee’s intention of either staying with or leaving an organization and it was shown to have an acceptable reliability with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0,80. The 6 items were measured on a 5-point response scale defined by two opposites (Never-Always; To no extent-To a very large extent; Highly unlikely-Highly likely). As an example, respondents were asked to give an indication (1 = Never; 5 = Always) on the statement “How often did you consider to leave your job?” (see Appendix D for all statements).

Control variables When testing the hypotheses, we controlled for subordinates’ age

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Data Analysis

First, raw data was inspected to ensure a sample of high quality. Thereafter, a factor analysis was conducted to examine the underlying structure of the included factors of this research. In addition, we tested whether the factors met the assumption of collinearity. Furthermore, a Shapiro-Wilk test was conducted in order to check whether the variables were normally distributed. The internal reliability was tested by computing measurement scales’ Cronbach’s Alpha. In the results section, bias-corrected bootstrapping analyses (Hayes, 2013) were used to test our hypotheses. The variables of age, gender and job tenure were included as control variables. All statistical analyses were done by using SPSS and a significance alpha level of 0,05 was applied. Before the analysis, we standardized our variables.

RESULTS Inspection of data

Because raw data is very rarely in the correct format, without error and complete, it is essential to prepare data for the statistical analyses (De Jong & Van der Loo, 2013). Therefore, the raw data was inspected for signs of irregularities. This led to the exclusion of 50 respondents, who can be subdivided in four groups of respondents.

Firstly, we excluded 8 respondents of the distrust present-condition, because the autobiographic recall paradigm did not trigger a relevant memory of a situation in which they distrusted a supervisor.

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respondents who took more time to complete the questionnaire. Therefore, respondents who completed the questionnaire in 13 minutes or less, where excluded from the sample.

Thirdly, we excluded respondents who answered (at the end of the questionnaire) ‘no’ to the question “In your honest opinion, should we use your data?”.

Lastly, at the very last question of the questionnaire respondents were asked to indicate (on a five-points scale from (1) ‘not serious at all’ to (5) ‘extremely serious’) the degree of their seriousness/concentration during the participation of the research. By using ANOVA, it was discovered that the respondents indicating an ‘1’ or ‘2’, differed significantly in their responses on many items from the respondents indicating ‘3’, ‘4’ or ‘5’. Therefore, respondents who indicated ‘1’ or ‘2’ were excluded from the sample.

Confirmatory factor analysis

A confirmatory factor analysis (Bentler & Wu, 2005), including the scales of abusive supervision, distrust, turnover intentions and internal locus of control, was conducted to evaluate whether the collected data was in line with the theoretically expected pattern of the target construct and to determine if the measures used have indeed measured what they are purposed to measure (Matsunaga, 2015). The research’s scales were made convergent, by removing items with loadings that differed less than 0,2 across two or more different factors (Ferguson & Cox, 1993), which we will refer to as ‘cross-loadings’. Overviews of the removed items and the final factor analysis are displayed in Appendix E and Appendix F.

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control, and internal locus of control-focused items that cross-loaded with the external locus of control-dimension. Further, item 12 was removed because it cross-loaded with the turnover intention scale and distrust scale. The final internal locus of control-scale included items 3, 7, 9, 13, 15 and 25 of the original internal locus of control scale.

Abusive supervision scale The confirmatory factor analysis showed that items 3, 5, 7,

9, 13 and 15 cross-loaded with the distrust scale. By examining this items in more detail, we thought this is explicable, because a statement like “My supervisor lied to me” is closely related to the distrust-concept. The concerning items were removed.

Distrust scale None of the distrust-items showed cross-loading and consequently all

items were maintained.

Turnover intentions scale The confirmatory factor analysis showed that items 4 and 6

cross-loaded with the distrust scale, while item 5 cross-loaded with both the distrust scale and the abusive supervision scale. Therefore, the three items were removed.

Assumption of collinearity

To test whether the variables met the assumption of collinearity, we calculated variance inflation factors (VIF). According to the guidelines of Field (2013), the outcomes (as showed in Table 1) indicated that multicollinearity was not a concern.

Table 1 Collinearity analysis Tolerance VIF Abusive supervision .61 1.65 Distrust .61 1.65

Internal locus of control .99 1.00

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Table 2

Shapiro-Wilk test for normality

Descriptives Shapiro-Wilk test

Variable Skewness Kurtosis Statistic

Abusive supervision 1.17 .651 .86*

Distrust .105 -1.18 .95*

Turnover intentions .236 -.81 .96*

Internal locus of control -.60 0.69 .96*

Note. n = 224, * p < .001,

Assumption of normality

A Shapiro-Wilk test was conducted to check whether the variables were normally distributed. The results of the test, displayed in Table 2, indicated that none of the variables seem to be normally distributed. In addition, we examined the descriptives, showing relatively high levels of positive skewness for abusive supervision and relatively high levels of negative kurtosis for distrust. Based on these findings, we decided to make use of the bias-corrected bootstrapping analysis for all further analysis (Hayes, 2013), because bootstrapping is a way to circumvent the problem of non-normal sampling distributions, by making estimations of the sampling distribution from the sample data (Field, 2013).

Testing the hypotheses

Hypothesis 1 & Hypothesis 2 Table 3 shows the means, standard deviations, reliability

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subordinates’ turnover intentions. Furthermore, Cronbach’s alphas showed acceptable internal consistency estimates of α ≥ .70 (Nunnally’s (1978).

Before testing the proposed mediation and moderations, first the effects of the manipulation on the dependent variables were considered. Analyses of variance were performed, with Distrust (present vs. absent) as between-subjects factor and subordinates’ gender, age and tenure as covariates. Significant differences between the two experimental conditions were evident for all dependent variables (see Table 3). Compared to participants recalling a hierarchical relationship marked by the absence of distrust, participants recalling a hierarchical relationship marked by the presence of distrust reported significantly more abusive supervision of the supervisor, more distrust of the supervisor and more turnover intentions. The analyses of variance also show that the variance of the independent variable internal locus of control was not different for both conditions, shown by the significance level in Table 3 (p =.62).

Table 3

Descriptive statistics, Cronbach’s alphas, effects of the experimental conditions, and variable intercorrelations

Distrust absent Distrust present

Variables M SD M SD F(1,219) p ηp2 1 2 3 4

1. Abusive supervision 1.49 0.66 2.21 0.92 49.02 <.001 .18 (.91)

2. Distrust 2.01 0.89 3.61 0.74 212.03 <.001 .49 .63*** (.93)

3. Turnover intentions 2.41 0.99 3.03 0.92 24.79 <.001 .10 .42*** .51*** (.78)

4. Internal locus of control 3.79 0.62 3.80 0.60 .25 .62 .001 -.06 -.02 0.003 (.76) Covariates

5. Gender 1.50 0.50 1.57 0.50 - - - -.04 .12 .07 -.14* 6. Age 21.97 2.56 21.78 2.58 - - - .03 .08 .22** -.13* 7. Tenure 18.93 21.99 13.55 17.29 - - - .05 -.06 -.03 .12

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To test Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 2, a mediation analysis was performed, using bias-corrected bootstrapping (Hayes, 2013; model 4). In the analysis, age, gender and tenure were included as control variables. Findings of the analysis are shown in Table 4. Consistent with Hypothesis 1, the analysis demonstrated that the relationship between abusive supervision and subordinates’ turnover intentions is significantly positive (β=.42, p < .001). Further, regression analyses (mediator model) revealed that abusive supervision was positively related to distrust (β = .63, p < .001) and that abusive supervision (controlled by gender, age and turnover) explained 42,14% (R² = 0.4214) of the variance in subordinates’ distrust of the supervisor. This findings were in line with the expected relationship between abusive supervision and subordinates’ distrust of the supervisor. In addition, the relationship between subordinates’ distrust (mediator) and subordinates’ turnover intentions (outcome) was tested (dependent variable model), in the presence of abusive supervision (predictor) and age, gender and tenure (control variables). As expected, the relationship was positive and significant (β = 0,38, p < 0,001). Regarding Hypothesis 2, the results indicated that the indirect effect of abusive supervision on subordinates’ turnover intentions via subordinates’ distrust was positive and significant. This was clearly demonstrated by the positive values and the absence of zero in the confidence interval, CI95%[.13, .35]. Because the effect of abusive

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In addition, since Hayes’ (2013) PROCESS-models do not show the R-square of the XY-model (without distrust), we performed an hierarchical regression analysis to assess the explained variance in turnover intentions that was contributed by adding distrust to the model. The results (see Table 5) of this analysis showed that distrust accounts for an additional 8,4%, Table 4

Regression results for the Indirect Mediation Effects with subordinates’ turnover intentions as the dependent variable and subordinates’ distrust of the supervisor as mediator.

Mediator variable model (DV = Distrust)

Predictor bª SE t p Constant -.81 0.45 -1.82 0.07 Age 0.02 0.02 1.11 0.27 Gender 0.27 0.10 2.64 0.01 Tenure -0.00 .00 -1.03 0.30 Abusive supervision 0.63 0.05 13.59 < 0.001

Dependent variable model (DV = Turnover intentions)

Predictor bª SE t p Constant -1.67 0.49 -3.41 < 0.001 Age 0.07 0.02 3.51 < 0.001 Gender 0.07 0.12 0.61 0.54 Tenure -0.00 0.00 -0.07 0.94 Distrust 0.38 0.08 4.57 < 0.001 Abusive supervision 0.18 0.07 2.43 0.02

Total effect model (DV = Turnover Intentions)

bª SE t p

Total effect of X on Y 0.42 [.31, .53] 0.05 7.70 < 0.001 Indirect effects (Mediation Model)

Effect Boot SE BootLLCI BootULCI

IV  M1  DV 0.24 0.07 0.13 0.35

Note. n = 224, ª Unstandardized regression coefficients, R²Mediator model = .42 (p < 0.001), R²Dependent variable model = .31 (p <

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Table 5

Explained variance in turnover intentions Model summary

Model R R Square Adjustes R Square

1 .23a 0.05 .04

2 .48b .23 .22

3 .56c .31 .30

a. Predictors: Gender, Age, Tenure

b. Predictors: Gender, Age, Tenure, Abusive supervision

c. Predictors: Gender, Age, Tenure, Abusive supervision, Distrust

shown by the R-square without the inclusion of distrust (R² = 0.23) and the R-square with the inclusion of distrust (R² = 0.31).

Hypothesis 3 & Hypothesis 4 We further predicted that the indirect effect would be

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Table 5

Regression results for the indirect moderation effects of subordinates’ internal locus of control on the relationship between abusive supervision and distrust

Moderator model (DV = Distrust)

Predictor Internal locus of control

bª SE t LLCI ULCI

Constant -0.92 0.45 -2.07* -1.80 -0.04

Abusive supervision 0.64 0.05 13.20*** 0.54 0.73

Internal locus of control 0.06 0.06 1.01 -0.05 0.17

Interaction 1 -0.02 0.04 -0.50 -0.11 0.06

Age 0.02 0.02 1.32 -0.01 0.06

Gender 0.29 0.11 2.71** 0.08 0.50

Tenure -0.00 0.00 -1.05 -0.01 0.00

Conditional effect for Abusive supervision on Distrust at values of the moderator

Internal locus of control Effect SE t LLCI ULCI

-1.00 0.66 0.06 10.52*** 0.54 0.78

.00 0.64 0.05 13.20*** 0.54 0.73

1.00 0.62 0.07 9.11*** 0.48 0.75

Note. n = 224, R²Moderator model = .42, ª Unstandardized regression coefficients, * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001,

Interaction 1 = Abusive supervision x Internal locus of control

Table 6

Regression results for the indirect moderation effects of subordinates’ internal locus of control on the relationship between distrust and turnover intentions

Moderator model (DV = Turnover intentions)

Predictor Internal locus of control

bª SE t LLCI ULCI

Constant -1.78 0.50 -3.54*** -2.77 -0.79

Distrust 0.51 0.06 8.61*** -0.09 0.20

Internal locus of control 0.06 0.07 0.75 0.34 0.54

Interaction 2 -0.12 0.08 -1.59 -0.27 0.03

Age 0.08 0.02 3.70*** 0.04 0.12

Gender 0.068 0.12 0.59 -0.16 0.30

Tenure -0.00 0.00 -0.12 -0.01 0.01

Conditional effect for Distrust on Turnover intentions at values of the moderator

Internal locus of control Effect SE t LLCI ULCI

-1.00 0.62 0.10 6.28*** 0.43 0.83

.00 0.50 0.06 8.61*** 0.39 0.63

1.00 0.39 0.09 4.30*** 0.21 0.57

Note. n = 224, R²moderator model = 0.31 ª Unstandardized regression coefficients, * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001,

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confidence interval, CI95%[-.11, .06]. Also no support was found for Hypothesis 4, as shown

by the zero being included in the confidence interval, CI95%[-.23, .02].

To examine the total effect of the moderator internal locus of control on the indirect effects of abusive supervision on turnover intentions through distrust, we performed an moderated mediation analysis, using bias-corrected bootstrapping (Hayes, 2013; model 58). Based on the Table 7

Regression results for the moderation effects of subordinates’ internal locus of control on the mediation effect of distrust on the relationship between abusive supervision and turnover intentions

Moderated mediation model

Mediation variable model (DV = Distrust)

Predictor bª SE t LLCI ULCI

Constant -0.92 0.45 -2.07* -1.80 -0.04

Abusive supervision 0.64 0.05 13.20*** 0.54 0.73

Interaction 1 -0.02 0.04 -0.50 -0.11 0.06

Age 0.02 0.02 1.32 -0.01 0.06

Gender 0.29 0.11 2.71** 0.08 0.50

Tenure -0.00 0.00 -1.05 -0.01 0.00

Dependent variable model (DV = Turnover intentions)

Predictor bª SE t LLCI ULCI

Constant -1.86 0.51 -3.67 -2.85 -0.86

Abusive supervision 0.18 0.07 2.38* 0.03 0.32

Distrust 0.40 0.08 4.74*** 0.23 0.56

Interaction 2 -0.11 0.08 -1.45 -0.26 0.04

Age 0.08 0.02 3.74*** 0.04 0.12

Gender 0.11 0.11 0.93 -0.12 0.33

Tenure -0.00 0.00 -0.32 -0.00 0.01

Conditional indirect effects of Abusive supervision on Turnover intentions at values of the moderator Mediator Internal locus

of control Effect Boot SE

BootLLC I BootUL CI Distrust -1.00 0.33 0.08 0.20 0.52 Distrust .00 0.25 0.06 0.15 0.39 Distrust 1.00 0.18 0.07 0.05 0.31

Note. n = 224, R²mediation variable model = .42***, R² dependent variable model = .33, ª Unstandardized regression coefficients, * p <

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expectations that internal locus of control affects the model both positively (Hypothesis 3) and negatively (Hypothesis 4), we expected that in the total model these contradicting effects would cancel each other out. Nevertheless, the results of the analysis (see Table 7) showed that as the internal locus of control increased, the magnitude of the indirect effect of abusive supervision on turnover intentions through distrust decreased and vice versa, although not significant.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

This empirical study aimed to extend the research on the abusive supervision construct, because in recent years researchers emphasized the strength and importance of the relationship between this construct and essential organizational outcome variables as well as employees’ well-being. In our study, we introduced the distrust-concept as a possible mediator between abusive supervision and subordinates’ turnover intentions. Besides, we responded to the call for research on the moderating effects of personality characteristics on perceptions of abuse (Martinko, Harvey, Brees & Mackey, 2013) by investigating the effect of internal locus of control on the model.

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Consistent with previous findings (Tepper, 2000; Tepper, 2007; Palanski et al., 2013; Crocker, 2005) and Hypothesis 1, we found a positive relationship between abusive supervision and turnover intentions (β = .42, p < .001). Further, we found that abusive supervision was strongly related to distrust (β = .63, p < .001), supporting the few previous findings (Sheppard & Sherman, 1998; Duffy & Ferrier, 2003; Xu et al., 2015). These findings provide support for the widely adopted assumption that abusive supervision can lead to considerable negative consequences (Tepper, 2007).

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behaviours). Related to that, it seems to be relevant to get a better understanding of the relationship between perceived abusive supervision and subordinates’ distrust. Both concepts seem to be triggered in a punctuated way (Bijlsma-Frankema et al., 2016; Palanski et al., 2013), and seems to be considered in terms of presence or absence (rather than in terms of high or low), which raises the question of how the two concepts will interact over time. Besides, considering the finding that distrust is known as a self-amplifying construct (Kramer, 1996; Lewicki, McAllister & Bies, 1998; Sitkin & Roth, 1993), it could be relevant to study the development of subordinates’ distrust over time, once emerged by abusive supervision. Therefore, in future research a longitudinal design is recommended.

Although previous research found evidence for the fact that locus of control may affect subordinates’ perceptions and expectancies of supervisors’ behaviour (Evans, 1974; Martinko et al., 2011; Rotter, 1966; Yukl, 1989), we didn’t find support for a moderating effect of subordinates’ locus of control on the relationship between abusive supervision and distrust (Hypothesis 3). This could be explained by the setting of our research. The autobiographic recall paradigm asked people to think of an situation in which they distrusted their supervisor, but did not include abusive behaviours of the supervisor in the manipulation. It could be that subordinates lower in internal locus of control indeed are more likely to start distrusting their supervisor compared to subordinates higher in internal locus of control, but in our research setting all participants imagined a situation in which the distrust was already present to some degree. Therefore, a recommendation for future research is to study how different participants are affected by the same predetermined abusive behaviours by a supervisor.

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that people higher in internal locus of control are more likely to take own initiative to leave an unhealthy or dissatisfying work-situation (Keller, 1984; Spector, 1982; Blau, 1987) and on previous research that found that people lower in internal locus of control are less likely to think about leaving a job but are more likely to wait until environmental factors force them to leave (Keller, 1984; Spector, 1982; Blau, 1987). Regarding the first finding, the question is to what extent distrust contributes to an unhealthy or dissatisfying work-situation, taking in consideration all other external factors that affect the work-situation. Regarding both of the findings, the question is to what extent the participant of our study differed in their levels of distrust of the supervisor, due to the manipulation, and how this affected their turnover intentions. In conclusion, it could be that the research design was not entirely suitable to test this hypothesis. To further test this hypothesis, in future research a recommendation would be to take into account other external factors in the work-situation and different levels of distrust.

Implications for practice

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many supervisors to exhibit more abusive behaviours (Spector, 1997), resulting in more negative outcomes for organizations and employees (Bies & Tripp, 1998). Therefore, it is of great importance for organizations to be aware of this situation and to create policies that curtail abusive supervision.

Limitations and Implications for future research

Our research was not without limitations. In calling attention to these limitations, we simultaneously suggest directions for future research.

The first limitation of this study is the cross-sectional design, which does not consider the development of the perceived abusive supervision, distrust and turnover intentions over time. In future research, longitudinal research is needed to determine how abusive supervision and subordinates’ distrust interact over time and how the indirect effect of abusive supervision on turnover intentions through distrust develops over time.

A second limitation of our study-design regards to the autobiographic recall paradigm that was used. Because the paradigm did not include abusive behaviours of the supervisor in the manipulation, people recalled different abusive behaviours, which may lower the explanatory value of our results. Therefore, a direction for future research is to include specific abusive behaviours of the supervisor in the manipulation.

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differences in power distance between cultures influence the norms toward abusive supervision (Hofstede, 2001). Therefore, in future research cross-cultural studies are needed to test the generalizability of our findings.

A fourth limitation is related to the predicting value of turnover intentions. Despite evidence that intentions to stay or leave the organization are the best predictors of voluntary turnover (Griffeth et al., 2000; Harris et al., 2005), the ability to explain individual voluntary turnover decisions seems to remain somewhat limited (Griffeth et al., 2000) and to vary widely, suggesting possible moderators of the relationship (Vandenberg & Barnes-Nelson, 1999). Therefore, as earlier suggested by Hom and Kinicki (2001), it seems worthwhile to extend the research on the mechanisms that translate turnover intentions in voluntary turnover.

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APPENDIX A

Abusive supervision scale-items

The scale includes the next items, which are prefaced with the statement “My boss …”: 1. “Ridicules me”

2. “Tells me my thoughts or feelings are stupid” 3. “Gives me the silent treatment”

4. “Puts me down in front of others” 5. “Invades my privacy”

6. “Reminds me of my past mistakes and failures”

7. “Doesn't give me credit for jobs requiring a lot of effort” 8. “Blames me to save himself/herself embarrassment” 9. “Breaks promises he/she makes”

10. “Expresses anger at me when he/she is mad for another reason” 11. “Makes negative comments about me to others”

12. “Is rude to me”

13. “Does not allow me to interact with my coworkers” 14. “Tells me I'm incompetent”

15. “Lies to me”

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APPENDIX B Distrust scale-items

1*. I suspected that my supervisor did not always had my best interest in mind 2*. I feared that my superior would treat me unfairly

3*. I was afraid that my superior would behave in a way that would be to my disadvantage 4*. My superior appeared mainly interested in her/his own well-being

5*. My superior would lie if that suited his/her purpose

6*. If I was not alert, my superior would take advantage of me

7*. I suspected that my superior would drop me like a brick if that suited his/her purpose 8*. My superior put up a noble front, to cover his/her less noble intentions

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APPENDIX C

Internal locus of control scale-items

.

Please read each statement. Where there is a blank, decide what your normal or usual attitude, feeling, or behaviour would be: A = Rarely (less than 10%) of the time)

B = Occasionally (about 30% of the time) C = Sometimes (about half the time) D = Frequently (about 70% of the time) E = Usually (more than 90% of the time)

Of course, there are always unusual situations, in which this would not be the case, but think of what you would do or feel in most normal situations.

Write the letter that describes your usual attitude or behaviour in the space provided on the response sheet. 1. When faced with a problem I _____ try to forget

2. I _______ need frequent encouragement from others for me to keep working at a difficult task 3*. I _______ like jobs where I can make decisions and be responsible for my own work 4. I _______ change my opinion when someone I admire disagrees with me

5. If I want something I______ work hard to get it

6. I ______prefer to learn the facts about something from someone else rather than having to dig them out for myself 7*. I _______will accept jobs that require me to supervise others

8. I _______have a hard time saying “no” when someone tries to sell me something 9*. I _______ like to have a say in any decisions made by any group I’m in

10. I _______consider the different sides of an issue before making any decisions 11. What other people think _______has a great influence on my behaviour

12. Whenever something good happens to me I _______ feel it is because I’ve earned it 13*. I _______ enjoy being in a position of leadership

14. I _______ need someone else to praise my work before I am satisfied with what I’ve done 15*. I _______ am sure enough of my opinions to try and influence others

16. When something is going to affect me I _______learn as much about it as I can 17. I _______ decide to do things on the spur of the moment

18. For me, knowing I’ve done something well is _______ more important than being praised by some else 19. I _______ let other peoples’ demands keep me from doing things I want to do

20. I _______ stick to my opinions when someone disagrees with me

21. I _______ do what I feel like doing not what other people think I ought to do

22. I _______ get discouraged when doing something that takes a long time to achieve results 23. When part of a group I _______ prefer to let other people make all the decisions

24. When I have a problem I _______follow the advice of friends or relatives

25*. I _______ enjoy trying to do difficult tasks more than I enjoy trying to do easy tasks

26. I _______ prefer situations where I can depend on someone else’s ability rather than just my own

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APPENDIX D

Turnover intentions scale-items

1*. How often do you dream about getting another job that will better suit your personal needs?a

2*. How often are you frustrated when not given the opportunity at work to achieve your personal work-related goals?a

3*. How often have you considered leaving your job?a

4. How likely are you to accept another job at the same compensation level should it be offered to you?b

5. To what extent is your current job satisfying your personal needs?c 6. How often do you look forward to another day at work?d

a

Scale: 1 = Never to 5 = Always

b

Scale: 1 = Highly unlikely to 5 = Highly likely

c

Reverse coding used to compute item mean scale. Item mean scale 1 = To a very large extent to 5 = To no extent

d

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APPENDIX E

Overview of items removed during confirmatory factor analyses

Scale Items removed Reason for removal

Internal locus of control

1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, 19, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27

Items fell within the external locus of control-dimension 5, 10, 16, 18, 20, 21, 28 Cross-loaded with the external

locus of control-dimension

12 Cross-loaded with the turnover

intention scale and distrust scale Abusive supervision 3, 5, 7, 9, 13, 15 Cross-loaded with the distrust

scale

Turnover intentions 4, 6

Cross-loaded with the distrust scale