Supervisor abuse as retaliation against employee production deviance : the moderating role of supervisor power distance orientation

Abstract

This thesis develops a model to explain when supervisors engage in abusive behaviors toward production deviant subordinates who intentionally violate norms regarding the quantity and quality of work. Invoking social exchange theory and research on power distance orientation, this thesis proposed that the tit-for-tat social exchange logic between employees' production deviance and leaders' abusive supervision is only applied to leaders with low power distance orientation. A field study (Study 1) based on multi-wave and multi-source data and an experiment (Study 2) consistently show that for leaders with low power distance orientation, there is a positive relationship between production deviance and abusive supervision; whereas for leaders with high power distance orientation, the relationship between production deviance and abusive supervision is not significant. A further experiment (Study 3) provides preliminary support for the social exchange mechanism (supervisor retaliation) underlying the moderating effect of leaders' power distance orientation, implying that only leaders with low power distance orientation are likely to interact with their subordinates based on social exchange logic.

Date of Award	2014
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology