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Large organizations typically mandate that managers attend budget meetings and exchange budget reports with their immediate supervisor and budget staff. We explored whether such organization-mandated budgetary involvement is related to managers’ budgetary communication with their supervisor in terms of budgetary participation, budgetary explanation, and budgetary feedback. Questionnaire data from 148 managers employed by 94 different companies were analyzed with regression. Mandatory budget meetings with supervisor had a positive relationship with all three forms of budgetary communication with supervisor, and mandatory budget reports from supervisor had a positive relationship with budgetary explanation from supervisor. Mandatory budget meetings with budget staff had a positive relationship with both budgetary participation with supervisor and budgetary feedback from supervisor. Mandatory budget reports from budget staff had a negative relationship with all three forms of budgetary communication with supervisor. The results failed to support proposed relationships between mandatory budget reports to supervisor and budgetary participation with supervisor, and between mandatory budget reports from supervisor and budgetary explanation from supervisor. Implications of the results for future research and budgetary system design are discussed.

There are numerous existing resources which claim to discuss the most important factors a potential PhD student should consider when looking for a possible supervisor. Commonly discussed topics include the supervisors’ record and approach, but there is much more to finding a reciprocal and beneficial relationship. This chapter will address some of these less discussed factors to look for when selecting a supervisor, including sense of humor. This chapter will help the hopeful PhD student maneuver the uncomfortable − and often overwhelming − waters of selecting a supervisor by pointing out the questions students forget to ask, the character traits they don’t think to consider, and examples of supervision selection gone wrong. It starts with the often-confusing process of knowing where to start looking, then highlights five frequently ignored factors that deserve more consideration, and finishes with warning signs to look for that mark supervisors to avoid.

Is co-supervision (i.e., two or more supervisors) a blessing or a torture? While co-supervision enables doctoral students to embrace a greater breadth of expertise, studying under the supervision of two or more supervisors can also be frustrating, especially when they have different requirements and expectations. Co-supervision is sometimes like living on the edge of two “systems” of theories and paradigms. It is important for doctoral students to be academically, emotionally, and interpersonally prepared to maximize the value of co-supervision, which often requires special management skills and techniques. Based on the experiences and stories of doctoral students from Hong Kong, this chapter will provide practical tips to navigate co-supervision.

“I just finished my meeting with one supervisor and need to prepare for the other now!”

“I just finished my meeting with one supervisor and need to prepare for the other now!”

“I can learn different things from each supervisor. It is very helpful.”

“I can learn different things from each supervisor. It is very helpful.”

“I am quite confused! My supervisors have totally different stands on this issue.”

“I am quite confused! My supervisors have totally different stands on this issue.”

Does any of the comments ring a bell with you? If you studied or are studying for a doctoral degree in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, or Hong Kong, you are likely to find yourself in similar situations. With the development of distributed supervisory practice in higher education and the growing number of doctoral candidates, more and more doctoral students are likely to be supervised by two or more academics, that is, co-supervision.

This study examines whether managerial capability fit between line managers, middle managers and top-level managers enhances effectiveness.

Effectiveness data and managerial capability ratings from more than 1,600 manager–supervisor dyads were collected in the United States and Germany. Polynomial regression was used to study the relation between manager–supervisor fit and managerial effectiveness.

Our results indicate that the fit of managerial capabilities between a manager and his/her supervisor predicts the effectiveness of this manager. The most effective managers show particularly high managerial capabilities that are in line with predominantly high managerial capabilities of their supervisors. Two aspects are important: the manager–supervisor fit and the absolute capability level that both possess. The results further indicate that the importance of the manager–supervisor fit varies across lower, middle and top-level management dyads.

This study contributes by advancing research on managerial capability fit conditions between managers and their supervisors as a central element in viewing and managing effectiveness.

This article informs managers, supervisors and HR professionals about pitfalls in organizations that degrade effectiveness.

This article shows how the alignment between managers and their supervisors relates to effectiveness in a large-scale study across different hierarchical levels.

Drawing on self-determination theory and organizational support theory, the present study explored how two styles of supervisor monitoring, namely, interactional and observational, differently impact job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment of subordinates. In addition, the mediating roles of psychological need satisfaction from the supervisor and perceived supervisory support were also investigated.

Responses were collected from 183 full-time employees through a web-based survey, and data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

Results indicate that interactional monitoring positively influences psychological need satisfaction from the supervisor and perceived supervisory support, while observational monitoring negatively influences psychological need satisfaction from the supervisor and perceived supervisory support. Psychological need satisfaction from the supervisor fully mediates the relationship between interactional monitoring and affective organizational commitment, while perceptions of supervisory support partially mediate the relationship between the two monitoring styles and job satisfaction.

The findings of the study need to be interpreted with caution as causality could not be inferred due to the cross-sectional nature of the study.

Supervisors are advised to adopt an interactional style of monitoring, as it favorably influences the work attitudes of subordinates.

The present study is one of the few works that have examined the differential impact of supervisor monitoring styles on subordinates' work outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to examine a customer orientation mechanism through which abusive supervision influences retail salespeople’s job performance; and second, to investigate how abusive supervision’s effects may be moderated by the same leader’s use of contingent punishment and contingent reward.

Two studies provide consistent findings. Study 1 used the field survey data from 129 salespeople in 42 retail stores. The proposed moderated mediation model was estimated using the random coefficient modeling technique. Findings were replicated in Study 2, in which data were collected from a sample of 679 US retail salespeople recruited through M-Turk.

Results from both studies show that abusive supervision reduces salespeople’s job performance through lowering their customer orientation. Furthermore, the use of contingent punishment from the same supervisor buffers abusive supervision’s detrimental effect, whereas the use of contingent reward augments it.

The issues the authors address in this research have significant implications for the literature of abusive supervision and retail selling. First, the authors contribute to the abusive supervision literature by pointing it out that the negative effect of abusive supervision can spill over to organizations’ external stakeholders, namely, customers. Previous research on abusive supervision has mainly focused on how abused subordinates exhibit hostile acts directed against the supervisor, coworkers and the organization (Tepper et al., 2017), with little attention paid to abusive supervision’s impact on organizations’ external stakeholders such as customers. This research fills the void by placing impaired customer-orientation as a critical consequence of abusive supervision. Second, this research tests a contingent self-regulation impairment model of abusive supervision and advances our understanding about how the same supervisor’s functional leadership behaviors (contingent reward/punishment) may set contingencies for the effect of abusive supervision on employee outcomes. This investigation clears the doubts about whether the use of functional leadership behaviors along with abusive supervision buffers or aggravates the detrimental effect of the latter. Finally, this study’s findings shed new insights to marketing practitioners, especially in understanding how salespeople may vent their stress on the customers when being abused by their supervisors. Without this in mind, supervisors may not be aware of the consequences of their abusive behavior and may even develop an illusion that such a practice worked. This research shows that abusive supervision can lower employees’ customer orientation, which will hurt the company in the long run.

The findings intend to provide important guidelines for companies to develop effective workshops and training programs to combat the detrimental effects of abusive supervision in the retailing industry. For example, the findings shed new insights in understanding how employees may vent their stress on the customers when being abused by their supervisors. Without this in mind, supervisors may not be aware of the consequences of their abusive behavior and may even develop an illusion that such a practice worked. Another important managerial implication of this research is that the use of contingent reward after mistreating subordinates can backfire. Supervisor abuses, followed by a contingent reward, send an inconsistent signal to the employee that creates confusion and strain. Inconsistent actions from the supervisor also produce ethical tensions that reduce customer-oriented behaviors and a company’s ability to serve the customer (Friend et al., 2020). These training programs are important methods to combat the detrimental effects of abusive supervision in the workforce.

This research draws on the contingent self-regulation impairment model as an overarching framework to unpack the relationship between abusive supervision and salespeople’s job performance. Integrating three research streams (i.e. abusive supervision, leadership reinforcement and retail selling), this study proposes customer orientation as a novel mechanism and sheds light on how abusive supervision interplays with contingent punishment/reward to impact salespeople’s outcomes.

Little consideration has been given to the role supervisors play in managing the introduction of new technology. Ignoring their role is shortsighted since supervisors can have a significant effect on the success of new systems. Drawing on research conducted in nine engineering companies, little awareness of forward planning in relation to the human dimensions of technical change is found. There is a crucial need for proper training of supervisors, although the exact approach will depend on the position occupied by them.

Examines the relationships between subordinates′ ratings of boss‐subordinate relationships and supervisors′ overall performance ratings. Data were collected from 3,232 managers (499 work groups) in a large North American information systems firm. Shows that supervisor and subordinate performance ratings were significantly, but not highly‐related. Moderators of this relationship included agreement among subordinates, organizational level, and function. The results have implications for the likely value of upward feedback to managers in different units and the need to educate supervisors in broader aspects of subordinate performance.

This article reports the results of a field study that aims to investigate the differences, if any, that exist between Saudi Arabian and U.S. supervisors, as perceived by their subordinates. It is assumed that any differences that exist are culturally bound and have a positive or negative effect on subordinates by making the work environment pleasant or unpleasant. The findings point to the existence of differences between Saudi Arabian and U.S. supervisors with regard to the subordinates' welfare, claiming subordinates' original ideas, performance evaluation, control, knowledge of the job, willingness to explain job duties to subordinates and motivation. Suggestions have been provided to reduce these differences in the work climate.

Despite all the changes over the past decade in how organizations are designed and managed, the role of the first‐line manager or supervisor remains crucial. Surveys have shown that today, just as 20 years ago, supervisors are regarded as more central to effective organizational performance than anybody else, with the possible exception of the general manager. Especially in manufacturing companies, supervisors are typically felt to have more influence, for both good and bad, than other groups of employees on such outcomes as absenteeism, product quality, cost reduction and labour relations. Despite this, the role of the supervisor has suffered a marked decline over this period. In this article, the reasons for this decline are analysed, and a series of recommendations developed for reversing the trend. What these suggestions for improving the situation have in common is that they involve supervisors being given more chance to employ the “levers of influence” inherent in their position than is typically the case at present.