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Research concludes that supervisor conflict is a primary antecedent of employee counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs). However, previous studies mainly focused on direct supervisor conflict, with indirect supervisor conflict understudied. To fill the research gap, the purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between indirect supervisor conflict and employee CWBs and the buffering effect of emotional intelligence on indirect supervisor conflict–CWB relationships in two studies.

The study used time-lagged design (Study 1) and longitudinal design (Study 2) with multisource data to test the theoretical model presented in this study.

The positive relationship between indirect supervisor conflict and CWBs were consistently supported with self-report CWBs but not with coworker-report CWBs. SEA and OEA were found to buffer the indirect supervisor conflict–CWB relationships with both self-report and coworker-report CWBs.

The study suggests that while covert and implicit, indirect supervisor conflict could drive employees to engage in CWBs that impose a threat to organization and its members. The emotional-appraisal aspect of emotional intelligence (i.e. SEA and OEA) could help employees to better cope with indirect supervisor conflict and mitigate employees’ engagement in CWBs.

Groups’ perceptions of their supervisors’ conflict management styles (CMSs) can have important implications for well-being. Rather than being examined in isolation, supervisor CMSs need to be considered in the context of supervisors’ emotional ability and the amount of conflict in workgroups. This paper aims to investigate the three-way interactions between group-level perceptions of supervisor CMSs (collaborating, yielding, forcing), supervisor emotion recognition skills and group relationship conflict in predicting collective employee burnout.

Group-level hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted with 972 teaching professionals nested in 109 groups.

The positive association between supervisor yielding climate and collective employee burnout was evident when supervisor emotion recognition was low but absent when supervisor emotion recognition was high. Groups with high supervisor forcing climate and high supervisor emotion recognition experienced lower group burnout, an effect evident at high but not low relationship conflict.

Supervisors have a critical – and challenging – role to play in managing conflict among group members. The detrimental effects of supervisor yielding and forcing climates on collective employee burnout are moderated by personal (supervisor emotion recognition) and situational (the level of relationship conflict) variables. These findings have practical implications for how supervisors could be trained to handle conflict.

This research challenges traditional notions that supervisor yielding and forcing CMSs are universally detrimental to well-being.

This study aims to investigate the extent to which employee outcomes (anxiety/depression, bullying and workers’ compensation claims thoughts) are affected by shared perceptions of supervisor conflict management style (CMS). Further, this study aims to assess cross-level moderating effects of supervisor CMS climate on the positive association between relationship conflict and these outcomes.

Multilevel modeling was conducted using a sample of 401 employees nested in 69 workgroups.

High collaborating, low yielding and low forcing climates (positive supervisor climates) were associated with lower anxiety/depression, bullying and claim thoughts. Unexpectedly, the direction of moderation showed that the positive association between relationship conflict and anxiety/depression and bullying was stronger for positive supervisor CMS climates than for negative supervisor CMS climates (low collaborating, high yielding and high forcing). Nevertheless, these interactions revealed that positive supervisor climates were the most effective at reducing anxiety/depression and bullying when relationship conflict was low. For claim thoughts, positive supervisor CMS climates had the predicted stress-buffering effects.

Employees benefit from supervisors creating positive CMS climates when dealing with conflict as a third party, and intervening when conflict is low, when their intervention is more likely to minimize anxiety/depression and bullying.

By considering the unique perspective of employees’ shared perceptions of supervisor CMS, important implications for the span of influence of supervisor behavior on employee well-being have been indicated.

This paper aims to probe the prevailing belief that engaging in innovative work behavior (IWB) will invariably lead to favorable outcomes. To do so, the paper integrates followership theory and cognitive dissonance theory to investigate the connection between employees’ IWB and despotic leadership, and the mediating role of interpersonal conflict with the supervisor in this connection. Moreover, the moderating impact of the supervisor’s dispositional resistance to change trait on the direct and indirect relationship between IWB and despotic leadership is explored.

The data were collected through a multi-wave survey of 350 employees and 81 supervisors working in 81 public schools.

The findings show that IWB has a positive and significant relationship with despotic leadership, and this relationship is mediated by interpersonal conflict with the supervisor.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that examines the link between IWB and despotic leadership via interpersonal/dyadic conflict and explores the moderating effect of leadership dispositional resistance to change trait in this indirect relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to test a multilevel model of the main and mediating effects of supervisor conflict management style (SCMS) climate and procedural justice (PJ) climate on employee strain. It is hypothesized that workgroup-level climate induced by SCMS can fall into four types: collaborative climate, yielding climate, forcing climate, or avoiding climate; that these group-level perceptions will have differential effects on employee strain, and will be mediated by PJ climate.

Multilevel SEM was used to analyze data from 420 employees nested in 61 workgroups.

Workgroups that perceived high supervisor collaborating climate reported lower sleep disturbance, job dissatisfaction, and action-taking cognitions. Workgroups that perceived high supervisor yielding climate and high supervisor forcing climate reported higher anxiety/depression, sleep disturbance, job dissatisfaction, and action-taking cognitions. Results supported a PJ climate mediation model when supervisors’ behavior was reported to be collaborative and yielding.

The cross-sectional research design places limitations on conclusions about causality; thus, longitudinal studies are recommended.

Supervisor behavior in response to conflict may have far-reaching effects beyond those who are a party to the conflict. The more visible use of supervisor collaborative CMS may be beneficial.

The economic costs associated with workplace conflict may be reduced through the application of these findings.

By applying multilevel theory and analysis, we extend workplace conflict theory.

In management research, little is known about how ethno-racial minority leaders interact with similar employees in supervisor–subordinate relationships. This study aims to examine and provide a deeper understanding of individuals’ negative reactions to similar others, thus highlighting the double-edged nature of demographic similarity which has historically predicted positive affective reactions.

Using a survey design, the authors collected data from supervisor-subordinate dyads from multiple companies from the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex in Texas, USA. They used ordinary least squares regression and conditional process analysis to test the hypotheses, including a two-stage moderation and moderated mediation.

Incorporating social context, i.e. minority status, as a moderator, the results show that ethno-racial minority leaders supervising ethno-racially similar subordinates were more vulnerable to relationship conflict than non-minority dyads. This, in turn, is linked to a reduction in the leaders’ feelings of trust toward their ethno-racially similar subordinate.

This study draws on social identity theory and status characteristics theory to explain the contradictory processes and outcomes associated with dyadic ethno-racial similarity and suggests the conditions under which dyad racial similarity is connected with unfavorable outcomes. This framework helps to broaden the boundary conditions of relational demography to provide a more nuanced explanation of when and why minority leaders in demographically similar hierarchical dyads experience more relationship conflict, which ultimately diminishes trust.

This research aims to explore the notion of fit between subordinates’ need for cognitive closure and supervisors’ power tactics on organizational conflict management.

Two-hundred and ninety employees drawn from six different Italian organizations were recruited for the purpose of this study.

Results indicated that high-need-for-closure subordinates utilized more constructive (solution-oriented) conflict management strategies when their supervisors relied on harsh power tactics, whereas low-need-for-closure subordinates were more inclined to use solution-oriented conflict management strategies when their supervisors relied on soft power tactics. Additionally, results indicated that, overall, supervisors’ use of harsh power tactics increased subordinates reliance on maladapted (control-oriented) conflict management strategies, but even more so for subordinates with low need for cognitive closure.

This study highlights the importance of supervisor–subordinate fit to understand conflict management in organizational setting.

The current study seeks to provide predictions for task conflict in supervisor‐subordinate dyads and to test empirically the mediation effects of task conflict between organizational culture/subordinate values and subordinate outcomes.

Structural equation modeling was employed to test the theoretical model.

It was found that task conflict mediates the relationship between a clan culture and intention to quit. Additionally, support was also found for the mediating effect of task conflict on the relationship between individualistic values and intention to quit.

More research is needed to take into consideration the variables influencing task conflict in both vertical and horizontal dyadic relationships. A dynamic view of conflict may further contribute to the existing literature.

More remedies are needed in organizations to foster positive employees' attitudes and wellbeing through the generation of task conflicts. For example, fostering a clan culture instead of a hierarchy may be vital.

The current study demonstrates that organizational culture/subordinate's values may be linked to different subordinate outcomes through task conflict.

This paper aims to offer insights regarding antecedents and consequences of relationship conflict in supervisor‐subordinate dyads, regardless of the demographic characteristics of the dyads. The authors explain the causes and outcomes of relationship conflict utilizing an affective approach, and suggest that factors such as moods, values, and situational context play an important role in influencing relationship conflict and its outcomes – intention to quit and trust in supervisor.

The authors surveyed 200 employees of multiple companies in the greater Atlanta, Georgia area. They utilized hierarchical regression, (with the inclusion of two‐ and three‐way interaction terms) to test their hypotheses and interaction effects.

Negative mood and positive mood interacted to impact the level of relationship conflict experienced by subordinates. Subordinates' collectivism values strengthened the impact of the positive mood‐negative mood interaction on relationship conflict. Mentoring and supervisor‐subordinate dyad tenure moderated the relationship conflict to outcomes associations.

The study goes beyond traditional relational demography research in order to offer new insights and perspectives on the causes and outcomes of relationship conflict at different hierarchical levels from an affective approach, specifically, moods theory. Since relationship conflict is an inevitable process, an understanding of antecedents and consequences of the conflict can allow managers to be better equipped to create a healthy work environment.

Drawing on the self-consistency theory and temporal comparison theory, this study hypothesize that relative perceived supervisor support may positively affect voice behaviour and negatively affect relationship conflict with a supervisor. This relationship happens through the underlying process of supervisor-based self-esteem acts as an underlying mechanism. But, such a relationship would be constrained by the value of temporal perceived supervisor support with high temporal perceived supervisor support strengthen this relationship as compared to low temporal perceived supervisor support.

Dyad data from 338 samples of employees nested within 50 supervisor workgroups from non-profit firms operating in three different cities in Sindh Pakistan were taken.

Data analysis showed that employees with a high perception of relative perceived supervisor support engaged in voice behaviour and restrain themselves from the relationship conflict. The supervisor-based self-esteem derived from supervisor support played the role of mediating this relationship. Moreover, temporal perceived supervisor support not only moderated the path between relative perceived supervisor support and supervisor-based self-esteem also the mediational strength of supervisor-based self-esteem in relative perceived supervisor support and voice behaviour and relationship conflict.

It is crucial to integrate social comparison in organizational support theory to view the supervisor–subordinate relationship beyond dyad. Managers should understand social comparison processes in which employees engage in to know how it affects various work attitudes and behaviours.

Given the importance of supervisor–subordinate relationships, the authors extend and build on the concept of social and temporal organizational support to supervisor support. The study is novel in studying such relationship and contribute to the supervisory support relationship literature beyond dyadic level.