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The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated teleworking, which inadvertently led to an impaired communication between supervisors and employees, resulting in abusive supervision. Drawing on the conservation of resources (COR) theory and the social identity theory, this study aims to address this negative association by examining the mediating role of state mindfulness and the moderating role of COVID-19 corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the relationship between abusive supervision and counterproductive work behaviors.

This research employs both qualitative and quantitative research designs. Data collection involved an experimental design with 117 participants (Study 1), a cross-sectional survey with 243 participants (Study 2) and semi-structured interviews with 24 full-time employees (Study 3).

The results reveal that state mindfulness acts as a mediator in the positive relationship between abusive supervision and counterproductive work behaviors (CWB). Furthermore, COVID-19 CSR mitigates the relationship between abusive supervision and CWB within the organization, but not with the supervisor. Additionally, COVID-19 CSR moderates the impact of abusive supervision on state mindfulness.

The results emphasize the crucial role of CSR when employees encounter abusive supervision during the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizations and managers should adopt appropriate strategies to enhance employees' perception of CSR. Prioritizing the cultivation of state mindfulness is also recommended, and organizations can provide short-term mindfulness training to improve employees' state mindfulness.

This research contributes to the understanding of abusive supervision and CWB in the context of forced teleworking.

The aim of this study is to examine the impact of abusive supervision on employees' emotional and work-related outcomes, using a theoretical framework that integrates affective events theory (AET) and self-determination theory (SDT). The research sought to explore the effects of abusive supervision on subordinates' positive and negative affect, and the subsequent impact on customer orientation and life satisfaction.

The data for this study were collected cross-sectionally through a structured questionnaire completed by employees who have experienced abusive supervision in their current or previous jobs. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data.

The results indicated that when subordinates experienced abusive supervision, they reported lower levels of positive affect and higher levels of negative affect. These emotions, in turn, impacted their customer orientation and life satisfaction. Positive affect was found to positively influence both customer orientation and life satisfaction, while negative affect had a negative effect on life satisfaction. Surprisingly, customer orientation was positively impacted by negative affect.

Therefore, the findings of this study suggest that positive and negative affects mediate the relationship between abusive supervision and life satisfaction, but not with customer orientation. This study advances prior research by linking the impact of an abusive supervisor to employees' customer behavior and life satisfaction, using positive and negative affects as mediators, and building upon the theories of AET and SDT.

Expanding on the research of the antecedents of abusive supervision, this study aims to explore supervisor role overload as a supervisor-level predictor of abusive supervision. Based on transactional stress theory, the authors investigate role overload that is appraised as a challenge or a hindrance stressor by supervisors, leading to pleasant or unpleasant feelings, respectively. The authors propose that, based on their appraisal, these feelings of supervisors act as a mediating mechanism that can facilitate or inhibit their abusive behaviour at work. Additionally, the authors posit emotional intelligence (EI) as a key moderator in helping supervisors manage the negative feelings arising from perceiving role overload as a hindrance and preventing them from demonstrating abusive supervision.

To test the proposed moderated mediation model, the authors collected two-wave data from middle-level supervisors or managers from several organisations located in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia (N = 990).

The results largely support the hypothesised relationships and show that depending on supervisor appraisal, role overload can generate pleasant or unpleasant feelings in supervisors and, consequently, impede or facilitate abusive supervision. They also shed light on the moderating effect of EI, in that supervisors scoring high on EI are better equipped to deal with unpleasant feelings arising from role overload and effectively manage their workplace behaviour, that is, to avoid abusive behaviours.

Role overload can have different impacts on employees: on the one hand, there is a potential for growth, which entails drive and enthusiasm; on the other hand, it could feel like an unsurmountable mountain for employees, leading to different forms of anxiety. Because what we feel is what we project onto others, supervisors experiencing unpleasant feelings cannot be the best leader they can be; even worse, they can become a source of negativity by displaying destructive behaviours such as abusive supervision. The corollary of something as minor as an interaction with a leader experiencing unpleasant feelings could have a ripple effect and lead to adverse outcomes for organisations and their employees. This study explores the different perceptions of role overload and the subsequent feelings coming from those perceptions as supervisor-level predictors of abusive supervision. While it is not possible to objectively put a different lens inside the minds of supervisors when they face stressors at work, to feel pleasant or unpleasant, they can be trained to manage their negative feelings and keep their behaviours in check. Particularly, training managers to be more emotionally intelligent can help them not only achieve growth by overcoming challenges at work but also acknowledge and adapt their feelings to keep their behaviours in the workplace positive. In practical terms, this research can provide organisations with the knowledge required to nip the problem of abusive supervision in the bud, as prevention is always better than cure.

Utilizing affective event theory (AET), this paper aims to understand the affective reasoning behind choosing to speak up for or against abusive supervision. For this purpose, the authors examine the underlying mechanism of employee state paranoia in the relationship between abusive supervision and promotive and prohibitive voice of employees.

Data from 307 microfinance bank employees were collected using supervisor–subordinate nested design and time-lag approach. The analysis was performed through partial least square (PLS) structural equation modeling using Smart PLS software.

The results support the direct relationship of abusive supervision with promotive and prohibitive voice. They also support the mediating relation of paranoia arousal between abusive supervision and promotive voice. However, the results do not support the mediating relationship of paranoia arousal between abusive supervision and prohibitive voice.

In light of the literature drawn from AET and empirical data, this study forwards robust recommendations for theory and practice and may assist future researchers interested in the role of employee paranoia arousal.

Cyberloafing (employees' non-work-related online activities at work) has become a common workplace problem for many organizations. Research investigating the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions under which abusive supervision influences cyberloafing remains largely underdeveloped. Drawing from social exchange theory and conservation of resources theory, we developed a moderated-mediation model in which emotional exhaustion was theorized as a unique mechanism underlining why employees are more likely to engage in cyberloafing under the supervision of abusive leaders. In addition, we proposed that organizational commitment to be a relevant boundary condition to influence such a relationship.

We collected 255 data from employees working in public listed companies in Malaysia and used partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to analyze the data.

The results showed that the influence of abusive supervision on cyberloafing through emotional exhaustion is only significant when organizational commitment is low.

This study constructed a moderated-mediation model by introducing the potential mediating effect of emotional exhaustion and the moderating effect of organizational commitment to reveal the mechanism through which abusive supervision related to cyberloafing.

Adopting the social information processing theory and social comparison theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine how abusive supervision and abusive supervisory climate jointly influence salesperson creativity, sales team creativity, and team performance.

The study conducted hierarchical linear modeling and hierarchical regression to analyze the paired data from 102 sales teams comprising 319 salespeople and 102 managers.

At the individual level, abusive supervision had negative effect on salesperson creativity via psychological safety. Abusive supervisory climate played a cross-level moderating role in the relationship between abusive supervision and psychological safety. At the team level, abusive supervisory climate was negatively related to sales team creativity via averaged salesperson creativity and negatively associated with sales team performance through sales team creativity.

This study adds to knowledge of how abusive supervision and abusive supervisory climate jointly affect salesperson psychological safety and creativity. It also contributes to abusive supervision and creativity literature by linking abusive supervisory climate and sales team creativity by integrating social information processing theory and social comparison theory.

The purpose of this paper is to test a mediated moderation model of the joint influence of abusive supervision, high-performance work systems (HPWSs) and organizational commitment and intention to leave on employee silence.

Data were collected from 456 employees and 78 human resource managers in 78 Chinese organizations.

The results revealed that abusive supervision led to subordinate silence, and HPWSs intensified this effect. In addition, such moderating effect of HPWSs was accounted for by employees’ organizational commitment and intention to leave.

To reduce the occurrence of employee silence, organizations should not only monitor and restrain abusive supervisory actions, but also be aware of subordinates’ work attitudes driven by organizational HPWSs.

This is the first study which demonstrates that HPWSs can foster employees’ organizational commitment and hinder their intention to leave and consequently strengthen the relation between abusive supervision and employee silence.

The purpose of this research is to investigate if employees possessing good political skill face less abusive behavior from their supervisors. Moreover, the gender of the subordinate has been tested as a moderator between political skill and abusive supervision. Cultural and social factors prevailing in the research settings of Pakistan provide an ideal situation to test the relationship between political skill and abusive supervision.

The data were collected from 178 employees representing different sectors of Pakistani industry. To test the relationship between political skill and abusive supervision, simple linear regression was run and moderation was tested using PROCESS macro.

From the analysis, the major findings prove that political skill lessens abusive supervision. Moreover, due to the cultural settings, male subordinates use political skill more proficiently to avoid abusive supervision as compared to female subordinates.

The study suggests that in order to maintain harmony in the work environment, employees must learn political skill to avoid abusive supervision. Moreover, females must be given more chances to utilize their political skill to get positive outcomes.

This study fills up a significant gap in the literature, as there is scarce literature available that investigates the relationship between political skill and abusive supervision, specifically in Pakistan.

This study aims to investigate the differential roles of self-esteem and co-rumination in the mediated relationship between abusive supervision and knowledge hiding via psychological safety.

The study used a three-wave time-lagged design and data were collected from 388 full-time employees in India.

The results show that psychological safety mediated the impact abusive supervision had on knowledge hiding. Further, this impact was weakened by higher self-esteem as employees with higher self-esteem were less affected by the impact of abusive supervision on psychological safety and knowledge hiding; but this impact was amplified by more co-rumination as employees who co-ruminated more were also more affected by abusive supervision in psychological safety and knowledge hiding.

A cross-sectional design and the use of self-reported questionnaires are a few limitations of this study.

This study took a purposeful deviation from the traditional path of organizational justice to the study of abusive supervision and psychological safety and endeavored an alternate route, one of resource conservation. Further, employees have diverse reasons that heighten or dampen their inclination to hide knowledge from others in the workplace. The study examines co-rumination and self-esteem as possible boundary conditions.

In a replication of a multi-source study by Xu et al., the authors examined whether leader-member exchange (LMX) mediates the relationship between abusive supervision and employee work behaviors, more specifically task performance, organizational citizenship behaviors toward the organization (OCBO), and toward other individuals (OCBI). Moreover, the authors also examined whether LMX mediates this relationship when the authors focus on the two dimensions of abusive supervision, that is active-aggressive and passive-aggressive abusive supervision.

The authors collected multi-source data in order to minimize common method bias. The authors conducted regression analyses, Sobel tests, and bootstrapping techniques.

The authors found support that LMX mediates the negative relationship between abusive supervision and OCBO and OCBI. However, the authors could not replicate the mediating role of LMX in the association between abusive supervision and employees' performance. Similar results were obtained when the data were analyzed with the active-aggressive and passive-aggressive abusive supervision subscales.

Due to the cross-sectional nature of the study, this study does not allow the authors to draw causal conclusions regarding the proposed relationships.

The authors replicated Xu et al.'s findings in a European context with a different sample and different measures for LMX, performance, and OCBI. The authors conducted bootstrapping analyses in order to control for the skewed distribution of abusive supervision. The authors explore whether the proposed relations still stand with regard to active-aggressive and passive-aggressive abusive supervision.