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When Core Self-Evaluations Influence Employees’ Deviant Reactions to Abusive Supervision: The Moderating Role of Cognitive Ability

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Abstract

Viewing workplace deviance within a victim precipitation framework, we explore how abusive supervisors target subordinates low in core self-evaluations (CSE) to explain when such employees respond by engaging in workplace deviance. We theorize that employees who are lower in CSE receive more abusive supervision, which generates subsequent harmful reactions toward supervisors, peers, and the organization. This occurs primarily when employees lack sufficient cognitive resources in dealing with supervisor abuse. We test, replicate, and extend our theoretical model in three empirical studies. Results demonstrate that lower employee CSE drew more abusive supervision and led low-CSE employees to exhibit workplace deviance. This abusive supervision mediation effect was stronger for employees with comparatively lower cognitive ability levels. The findings are discussed with regard to theoretical and ethical issues in confronting employee abuse.

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Acknowledgements

We lament the passing of Mark Bing, our friend and colleague. We wish to acknowledge Shannon G. Taylor for his assistance with this manuscript, Maureen L. Ambrose and James P. Burton for comments made on earlier versions of this manuscript, and Wonderlic Inc. for providing gratis copies of their measure of cognitive ability.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Managerial Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago, 601 S. Morgan St. 2204 UH, Chicago, IL, 60607-7122, USA

    Donald H. Kluemper

  2. Department of Management, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, 36849, USA

    Kevin W. Mossholder

  3. Department of Psychology, Illinois State University, Normal, IL, 61790, USA

    Dan Ispas & Alexandra Ilie

  4. Department of Management, University of Mississippi, Holman 233, University, MS, 38677, USA

    Mark N. Bing

  5. Department of Psychology, National School of Political and Administrative Studies, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

    Dragos Iliescu

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  1. Donald H. Kluemper
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Correspondence to Donald H. Kluemper.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Declaration Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. This article does not contain any studies performed using animals.

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Kluemper, D.H., Mossholder, K.W., Ispas, D. et al. When Core Self-Evaluations Influence Employees’ Deviant Reactions to Abusive Supervision: The Moderating Role of Cognitive Ability. J Bus Ethics 159, 435–453 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-018-3800-y

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