Chapter 8: Explaining Hostile Actions: Integrating Theories of Abusive Supervision and Conflict Asymmetry

Abusive supervision is a significant social problem: targets of abuse suffer personally (e.g., depression), abusive actions affect the functioning of organizations (e.g., reduced productivity), and abusive supervision may even lead to societal disasters (e.g., shooting incidents, hostage takings). We define abusive supervision as hostile actions perpetrated by hierarchically more powerful supervisors against less powerful targets. These hostile actions range from socially excluding the target to physical assault. Why supervisors may act hostile is still not quite clear, since past research has paid more attention to the consequences of abusive supervision rather than the antecedents (Tepper, 2007). In this chapter, we argue that asymmetrical conflict perceptions between supervisors and subordinates can easily escalate into abusive supervision. Past research on abusive supervision has largely focused on the perspective of the target of abuse (e.g., Aquino & Thau, 2009; Tepper, 2000), therefore, we lack insight into the perspective and motivation of the abusive supervisor (for an exception see Aryee, Chen, Sun, & Debrah, 2007). A few empirical studies suggest that supervisors act in an abusive manner towards subordinates when they perceive injustice or wrongdoing by the organization; and this effect gets stronger when the abusive supervisor also has an adverse personality profile, such as one that reflects affective negativity or general authoritarianism (Aryee et al., 2007; Hoobler & Brass, 2006). In addition, Tepper (2007) suggests in his review article that the research on abusive leadership is rather phenomenon-driven and is in need of theory. In this chapter, we apply a conflict asymmetry theoretic framework (Jehn & Rispens, 2008; Jehn, Rispens, & Thatcher, 2010) to introduce a stage model that describes how conflict with a subordinate triggers abusive supervision, what hostile actions supervisors are likely to use, and the consequences of these hostile actions for target, and other organizational observers.