abusive supervision and lmx leaders emotional intelligence as antecedent variable and trust as...
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Leader Member Exchange and Abusive SupervisionTRANSCRIPT
and trust as consequence variable
Ding Xiaqi Tian Kun Yang Chongsen Gong Sufang
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To cite this document: Ding Xiaqi Tian Kun Yang Chongsen Gong Sufang, (2012),"Abusive supervision and LMX", Chinese Management Studies, Vol. 6 Iss 2 pp. 257 - 270 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17506141211236695
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Mary C. Kernan, Sharon Watson, Fang Fang Chen, Tai Gyu Kim, (2011),"How cultural values affect the impact of abusive supervision on worker attitudes", Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, Vol. 18 Iss 4 pp. 464-484 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13527601111179528
Linda C. Isenhour, Dianna L. Stone, Donald Lien, Long-Zeng Wu, Ho Kwong Kwan, Jun Liu, Christian J. Resick, (2012),"Work-to-family spillover effects of abusive supervision", Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 27 Iss 7 pp. 714-731 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/02683941211259539
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D o w n l o a d e d b y U n i v e r s i t a s G a d j a h M a d a A t 0 7 : 4 0 1 7 F e b r u a r y 2 0 1 5 ( P T )
variable and trust as consequence variable
Ding Xiaqi, Tian Kun, Yang Chongsen and Gong Sufang College of Management, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how leaders’ emotional intelligence (EI) influences subordinates’ trust and to examine the roles played in the process by abusive supervision (a negative leadership) and leader-member exchange (LMX) (a positive leadership).
Design/methodology/approach – According to revelations in the case of Foxconn’s jumping events and LMX theory, this paper argues that low levels of leaders’ EI affect their subordinates’ perception of abusive supervision and tends to cause their mistrust of employers in return, further damaging the employer-employee relationship. Tension will develop or be intensified among such relationships as time evolves and relationship length extends. A superior-subordinate matching questionnaire survey was conducted among enterprises in Shenzhen, China. About 202 valid samples were eventually collected. The data were analyzed through correlation analysis, regression analysis, CFA, EFA and SEM using SPSS and LISREL.
Findings – The EI of superiors has a significant positive impact on the personal trust between subordinates and superiors, in which both abusive supervision and LMX play a partial mediating role; and the relationship length of superiors and subordinates plays a moderating role between LMX and affective trust.
Practical implications – The paper advises that when selecting leaders, more emphasis should be placed on EI, and managers should be trained to improve their emotional skills.
Originality/value – The paper extends the research on the antecedent and consequence variables of abusive supervision in Chinese enterprises, discussing both positive and negative leadership.
Keywords China, Leadership, Management skills, Employees behaviour, Trust, Interpersonal skills, Abusive supervision, Leader-member exchange, Emotional intelligence, Relationship length
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction As owners of power in organizations, leaders have great influence both on staff and organizations. For a long time, researchers have paid much attention to positive leadership such as transformational leadership, charismatic leadership and concerned on improving leadership effectiveness. However, both leaders and leadership have their dark sides. According to Kellerman (2004):
[. . .] there has long been a partiality to the positive aspects in traditional study on leaders and leadership, while this partiality can trick us into perceiving the essence of leadership. Only with study from various aspects can we get an all-around insight of this field. One way to increase the probability of good leadership is to encourage as many people as possible to study, teach and practice it. But another way is to encourage the exploration into bad leadership.
Bad leadership is as ubiquitous as it is insidious in organizations and it must be more carefully examined. Besides, to understand good leadership, we must recognize and study the opposite of good leadership. “We are learning as much from leaders which
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pp. 257-270
1750-614X
DOI 10.1108/17506141211236695
are considered bad ones as from those good ones” (Kellerman, 2004). Therefore, studying the “dark” side of leaders is supposed to make some contribution to the amendment of theoretical systems of leadership.
Destructive behaviors are ubiquitous in our workplace. Researchers have different concepts for it, such as “abusive supervision”, “bully” and “aggression”. Abusive supervision is not only negatively related to employees’ job satisfaction and work performance, but also increases their turnover intention and even some senseless acts, which would do great harm to organizations. In 2010, the Foxconn jump event has set off an animated discussion, in which frontline managers often adopt mocking, venting and discrimination behavior during the production process, the negative effect caused by abusive supervision was widely considered as one of the most important reasons.
Based on evidence from enterprises in Chinese culture background, this paper focused on abusive supervision and LMX, in which EI played as antecedent and trust as consequence variables.
2. Literature review, hypotheses and methods 2.1 Relationship between abusive supervision, LMX and subordinates’ trust Tepper (2000) had pioneered the concept of “abusive supervision”. In his view, abusive supervision refers to subordinates’ perceptions of the extent to which supervisors engage in the sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors, excluding physical contact. Some aspects of this definition are of specific interest. First, abusive supervision is subordinates’ perceptions, which means that while one subordinate may view a supervisory action as abusive, another may not. Second, abusive supervisory behaviors refer only to the behaviors themselves, not to the intentions of actions. Third, abusive supervision does not refer to physical contact. Physical contact would fall under the spectrum of violent behaviors. Finally, abusive supervision refers to a “sustained display” of negative supervisory behaviors, not just a one-time event (Tepper, 2000; Harris et al., 2007). The studies on abusive supervision demonstrate the negative impact abusive supervision has on a variety of individual outcomes such as higher levels of anxiety (Bordia and Tang, 2009), helplessness (Ashforth, 1997), increased levels of work-family conflict, turnover intention and emotion exhaustion (Tepper, 2000) and lower levels of mental health and self-esteem (Hobman et al., 2009). Moreover, abusive supervision is also negatively related to self-efficacy (Duffy et al., 2002) and job satisfaction (Tepper, 2000) and so on.
Among the consequence variables of abusive supervision. We believe it is important to pay attention to the variable of trust. Trust is essential for cooperation. It is the most direct, economical and effective way for leaders to improve the effectiveness of organizations (Kramer and Tyler, 1996). Improving subordinates’ trust in their supervisors will help form a harmonious relationship in the organizations resulting in organizational citizenship behavior and improving subordinates’ job performance, loyalty and willingness to obey supervisor’ decisions and organization regulations, as well as reducing uncertainty, lowering transaction costs enhancing internal resources to more rational use, thus improving organizational effectiveness (Barney and Hansen, 1994).
According to Whitener et al. (1998) social exchange and mutual benefiting which we call reciprocity are important basis of trust. But there can also be negative reciprocity, where negative treatment is returned or repaid with negative behaviors
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(Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005). The leaders would win trust from subordinates if their behaviors conform to the principles of openness, fairness and impartiality (Hua, 2008). In contrast, if a leader indulged in abusive behavior, it will inevitably level down subordinates’ trust in leaders. (Sayles, 1989; Sims and Lorenzi, 1992). Several studies argue that trust is an important outcome that either increases or decreases through time as a result of favorable or unfavorable experiences in workplace. Abusive supervision is a particularly unpleasant circumstance that can be predicted to contribute to feelings of distrust and negative attitudes towards the organization (Tepper, 2007).
In summary, we believe that in order to enhance subordinates’ trust, leaders need to show applicable attitudes and behaviors, such as encouraging subordinates, coming forward with help to their work and identifying with their values, so that the subordinates would pay back high level of trust and hard work. If leaders present more abusive behaviors during the management process, it will level down subordinates’ trust in leaders. These arguments help to yield the following hypothesis:
H1. Abusive supervision has a negative effect on subordinates’ trust.
As previously stated, one way to understand the mechanism of leaders’ behavior on subordinates’ trust is to treat the relationship between organization and employees as social exchange. Processes of social association can be considered as an exchange of activity, tangible or intangible and more or less rewarding or costly, between at least two persons (Homans, 1961). When people are gathered together, before common norms or goals or role expectations have crystallized among them, the advantages to begin from entering into exchange relations furnish incentives for social interaction and the exchange processes serve as mechanisms for regulating social interaction (Blau, 1964). The basic principle of socialexchange may be this: an individualwho suppliesrewarding services to another obligates him, thus to discharge this obligation, the obligated one must furnish benefits to the first in return. Mauss (1954) claimed that, people not only exchange economic value, they exchange courtesies, entertainments, ritual, military assistance and so on, just as one part of a wide and enduring contact. When there is no way to assure an appropriate return for a favor, social exchange requires trusting others to discharge their obligations. Typically, however, exchange relations evolve in a slow process, starting with minor transactions in which little trust is required because little risk is involved (Blau, 1964). Graen etal. (1982)develop a new taxonomy of approaches to leadership. They discussed LMX as a relationship-based approach to leadership. In Jin et al.,’s (2007) study, LMX plays a leading role in the process of subordinates’ trust to leaders. The higher level of LMX, the higher level of trust leaders will get. The second hypothesis of this paper is:
H2. LMX has a positive effect on subordinates’ trust.
2.2 Relationships between emotional intelligence, abusive supervision and LMX Emotional intelligence (EI) can be described as an ability to reason with emotions, to assimilate emotion-related feelings and to manage them. It is also explained by one’s ability to perceive emotions accurately and to reflectively regulate emotions in a way that promotes emotional and intellectual growth (Goleman, 2001). Capacity for the identification, control and management of emotion makes people easier to develop social competencies that include constructive communications, positive interpersonal relationships and good management skills. Waldman et al. (2001) defined the transformational leadership as a combination that would benefit both leaders
Abusive supervision
and LMX
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and subordinates. The transformational leader behaviors may include describing a good vision, conveying sense of mission and motivating employees. The advantageous influence of those behaviors may make subordinates feel easy at work and express high level of trust. Kellett et al. (2002) found that leaders’ EI has a significant positive correlation with relation-oriented and task-oriented leader behavior. Sosik and Megarian (2001) believed leaders’ EI can influence his transformational leadership, with psychological empowerment as a moderating variable. Purkable (2003) held that leaders’ EI had a significant positive correlation with some variables of leadership behavior. Kellett et al. (2002), Ferres and Connell (2004) and Bryson (2004) proved that some dimensions of leaders’ EI have significant positive correlations with leadership. From the definition of abusive supervision we can see that there are many opposite features between abusive supervision and transformational leadership. Based on the above discussion, we make the third hypothesis as below.
H3.The lower EI levels of superiors, the higher level of abusive supervision subordinates would perceive superiors with a high level of EI have good communication and interpersonal skills and can communicate with their subordinates timely and properly. They offer support when subordinates get stuck, so the subordinates begin to have trust and expectations on them, during which a high level of leader-subordinate exchange comes into being. On the contrary, if superiors ignore their subordinates’ emotion and there is little communication between employees and superiors, employees will gradually become disappointed with superiors and have little trust and expectations on superiors, thus causing low levels of leader-member exchange (LMX). In practice, leaders with high levels of EI behave maturely and modestly in work and are more likely to settle disputes in a peaceful and appropriate way(Smith, 2006). So employees are quite willing to establish cooperative relationship with such leaders, expecting to get more opportunities for advancement. All these arguments help us to form H4:
H4. The higher EI levels of superiors, the more of LMX subordinates would perceive.
2.3 The moderating role of relationship length If abusive supervision takes place frequently or lasts for a long time, it invariably causes employees’ antipathy and then brings about subordinates’ distrust. Furthermore, it takes time for people to know each other. There’s a common saying in China that you can know a person only after a long time. Only when people get along for a time can they trust each other. So we can speculate that the relationship length affects the relationship between superiors’ abusive supervision and subordinates’ trust.
In addition, the LMX is also affected by relationship length. After a long time of mutual benefiting of superiors and their subordinates, their cooperative relationship is validated and consolidated. The cooperative relationship and mutual benefiting in the long run can help subordinates get superiors’ praise, as well as help superiors get their subordinates’ trust in return. So relationship length influences the relationship between LMX and subordinates’ trust. To be concrete, the longer relationship length and the higher LMX, the more subordinates’ trust:
H5. Relationship length affects the relationship between leaders’ abusive supervision and subordinates’ trust.
H6. Relationship length affects the relationship between LMX and subordinates’ trust.
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2.4 The mediating roles of abusive supervision and LMX in the relationship between EI and subordinate’s trust The above discussion is intended to explain that leaders’ EI can affect subordinates’ trust through two different ways: abusive supervision and LMX. Our last two hypotheses are as follows:
H7. Abusive supervision partially mediates the relationship between leaders’ EI and subordinates’ trust.
H8. LMX partially mediates the relationship between leaders’ EI and subordinates’ trust.
All our eight hypotheses can be described by this model (Figure 1).
2.5 Methods 2.5.1 Measuring tools. Leaders’ EI. We use the WLEIS questionnaire of Wong et al. (2002) to measure leaders’ EI. There are 16 terms, including four dimensions: self-emotional evaluation (e.g. usually I know why I have some feeling), the cognition and evaluation of others’ emotion (e.g. usually I can guess my friends’ emotion from their behaviors), emotional control (e.g. I can calm down quickly when angry) and self-motivation with emotion (e.g. I often encourage myself to do the best). The questionnaire is of high reliability and validity. Items were rated proteges on a five-point scale ranging from 1 (disagree strongly) to (agree strongly).
Abusive supervision. The questionnaire of 15 terms by Tepper (2000), which was revised with the method of back-translation by Taiwan Scholar Wu Zongyou was employed. Items were rated proteges on a five-point scale ranging from 1 (disagree strongly) to (agree strongly).
Leader-member exchange. The widely used LMX-7 scale was applied in the paper, which was proposed by Graen et al. (1982). Hui et al. (1999) translated it into Chinese and it was used widely in Chinese culture. We use the Chinese scale in our study. The coefficient of internal consistency of the Chinese scale is between 0.80 and 0.90. Hui, Law and Chen revised it during translation. They found that the
Figure 1. Structural relations
261
reliability of the scale was 0.86 in Chinese companies. 7-Likert was used from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The high score means high level of LMX.
Subordinates’ trust in leaders. The questionnaire of subordinates’ trust to their leaders was worked out by McAllister (1995), which contains 11 questions with five emotional trust and six cognitive trust ones. The coefficients of internal consistency of emotional trust subscale and cognitive trust subscale are 0.89 and 0.91 in his research. The items of the two subscales are of high load in confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). 7-Likert was used from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), with high scores representing high employee trust.
C on tr ol v ar ia ble s. Th e q ue st io nn air e inc lu de d r esp on den ts ’ a ge , gender, education level, tenure with current leader and so on, all of which are control variables.
2.5.2 Data collection. Paired questionnaire surveys were conducted on both employees and their leaders. Employees finished scales on their perceived abusive supervision, LMX and their trust in superiors; their leaders finished the questionnaire on EI. Finally, 201 valid questionnaires were received (response rate 57 percent) from enterprises in Shenzhen, China. Among subordinates 110 were female (55 percent), 91 were male (45 percent). The age of subordinates was 18 to 50, with an average of 27. The supervisor sample reported an average age of 34 range from 24 to 56 and 92 were female (46 percent), 109 were male (53 percent). It was worth of noting that just as expected, the mean of abusive supervision was 1.39, which was similar to those found in others studies where mean levels of abusive supervision have ranged from lows of 1.26 (sample 1 in Tepper et al., 2004) and 1.38 (Tepper, 2000) to highs of 1.70 (Zellars et al., 2002).
3. Data analysis and results 3.1 The mediating roles of LMX and abusive supervision Table I provides the intercorrelations of the latent variables. Supporting H1 to H4, abusive supervision had a negatively impact on subordinates’ trust and LMX significantly positively influenced the affective and cognitive trust. It also showed that EI significantly influenced the hypothesized mediator of LMX and abusive supervision in the predicted directions.
CFA was used to examine the measurement model. The analysis results were shown in Table II. x 2/df of all the four scales were less than 2.5, meanwhile the SRMR
Variables 1 2 3 4 5
1. Emotional intelligence (0.813) 2. Abusive supervision 20.248 * (0.912) 3. LMX 0.374 * 20.359 * (0.728) 4. Affective trust 0.283 * 20.421 * 0.472 * (0.774) 5. Cognitive trust 0.340 * 20.468 * 0.508 * 0.550 * (0.860)
Notes: Significant at: * p , 0.01; n ¼ 201; figures in parentheses are alpha internal consistency reliabilities
Table I. Intercorrelations among the latent variables
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were all less than 0.08 and NNFI CFI IFI GFI were all greater than 0.9. The goodness of fit statistics indicated a good fit to the data. To evaluate the mediation of LMX and abusive supervision, we compared the fit of three partially mediated models to the fully mediated model:
(1) a model with two direct paths from EI to the two outcome variables;
(2) a model with a direct path from EI to affective trust; and
(3) a model with a direct path from EI to cognitive trust.
The results were presented in Table III. As shown in that table, the partially mediated model 1 was the best fitting model. Results from this indicate that LMX and abusive supervision partially mediate the influence of EI on subordinates’ trust and provide support for H7 and H8 .
Figure 2 shows the LISREL estimates for the partially mediated model 1 sized paths. As shown in the figure, EI was positively related to LMX quality, which in turn was related to the affective and cognitive trust, meanwhile, abusive supervision partially mediates the relationship between leaders’ EI and subordinates’ trust. H7 and H8 were supported.
3.2 The moderating role of relationship length To examine the moderation hypotheses, we performed two separate hierarchical regression analyses. Each analysis had three steps. Table IV presents the test of the moderating effect that relationship length has on the relationship between abusive supervision and affective trust, cognitive trust. The control variables were entered in the first step. In the second step, we entered the “main effects” (abusive supervision and relationship length). Finally, the abusive supervision X relationship length variable was entered in the third step. Both variables were mean-centered as is suggested for variables that are to be constituents of product terms (Aiken and West, 1991). Table IV presents the results of hierarchical regression. The results show no
Measurement model x 2 df x
2/df RMSEA NNFI CFI IFI GFI
EI 97.24 45 2.161 0.076 0.94 0.96 0.96 0.93 LMX 12.02 7 1.717 0.060 0.96 0.98 0.98 0.98 Abusive supervision 113.27 50 2.265 0.080 0.97 0.98 0.98 0.91 Trust 25.62 12 2.135 0.075 0.97 0.99 0.99 0.96
Table II. Results of measurement
model fit ( n ¼ 201)
Models x 2 df X2/df RMSEA NNFI CFI IFI GFI
1. Fully mediated model 267.92 127 2.11 0.074 0.95 0.96 0.96 0.87 2. Partially mediated model 1a 236.73 124 1.91 0.067 0.96 0.96 0.96 0.88 3. Partially mediated model 2b 258.08 125 2.06 0.073 0.95 0.96 0.96 0.87 4. Partially mediated model 3c 251.67 125 2.10 0.071 0.95 0.96 0.96 0.87
Notes: n ¼ 201; ain comparison to the fully mediated model, partially mediated model1adds two paths from EI to the two outcomes: affective trust and cognitive trust; bpartially mediated model 2 adds a path from EI to affective trust; cpartially mediated model 3 adds path from EI to cognitive trust
Table III. Results of model
comparisons
263
prediction that relationship length moderates the relationship between abusive supervision and affective trust ( b ¼ 20.028, p . 0.05) cognitive trust ( b ¼ 20.057, p . 0.05), H5 was not supported.
Table V presents the test of the moderating effect that relationship length has on the relationship between LMX and affective trust cognitive trust. The control variables were entered in the first step. In the second step, we entered the “main effects” (LMX and relationship length). Finally, the LMX X relationship length variable was entered in the third step. The results show that relationship length moderates the relationship
Dependent variables Affective trust Cognitive trust
Independent variables Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
Step 1 Subordinate’s sex 0.047 20.019 20.017 0.144 * 0.054 0.058 Subordinate’s age 0.096 0.033 0.034 20.053 20.143 20.139 Subordinate’s level of education
0.111 0.049 0.053 0.001 20.084 20.077
Leader’s sex 0.012 20.023 20.024 0.058 0.009 0.007 Leader’s age 0.114 0.041 0.038 0.227 * * 0.126 0.119 Leader’s level of education 20.129 20.129 20.128 0.505 20.053 20.052 Number of subordinates 20.057 0.009 0.012 0.199 0.186* * 0.191 R 2 0.041 0.069 Step 2 Abusive supervision (A) 20.365 * * 20.367 * * 20.491 * * 20.495 * *
Relationship length (B) 0.119 0.116 0.171 * 0.166 *
R 2 0.176 0.316 e R 2 0.135 * * 0.247 * *
Step 3 A £ B 20.028 20.057 R 2 0.177 0.319 e R 2 0.001 0.003
Note: Significant at: * p , 0.05 and * * p , 0.01
Table IV. Results of hierarchical regression analyses a ( n ¼ 201)
Figure 2. Estimated path coefficients of the partially mediated model 1
–0.19**
0.28**
0.38**
0.48**
0.47**
–0.16**
–0.52**
0.45**
Emotional
intelligence
Abusive
supervision
Cognitive
trust
LMX
Affective
trust
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between LMX and affective trust ( b ¼ 20.128, p , 0.05), however, cognitive trust ( b ¼ 20.057, p . 0.05) did not significant, partially supported H6 .
In sum, these results provide support for the structural relations among them. In particular, EI influence abusive supervision and LMX, furthermore, abusive supervision and LMX partially mediate the relationship between leaders’ EI and subordinates’ trust on leaders and the relationship length moderates the relationship between LMX and affective trust.
4. Discussion and conclusion 4.1 The main contributions Through the introduction of abusive supervision, LMX and EI, this paper studies the mechanism of EI on subordinates’ trust. The main contributions of this study are as follows.
First, the paper discussed the antecedent factor of abusive supervision, which was supported by empirical data. We found that the EI level of superiors has a significant negative impact on abusive supervision. Grandey (2000) suggested that intelligent individuals with higher EI can keep continuous positive moods and feelings. In other words, Leaders who have high level of EI tend to use less supervised behavior in the management process. Leaders with low level of EI are more likely to use abusive supervision. By discussing the influence factor of abusive supervision, we concluded the way abusive behaviour affects organizations and employees, thus helping to find effectivemethods to reduce such behaviors. In theprevious, there were only a few papers focusing on the cause of abusive supervision, in which abusive supervision was mainly considered as a kind of aggression of supervisor’s. Hoobler and Brass’s study showed
Dependent variables Affective trust Cognitive trust
Independent variables Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
Step 1 Subordinate’s sex 0.047 0.040 0.037 0.144* 0.134 * 0.133 *
Subordinate’s age 0.096 0.031 0.010 20.053 20.140 20.150 *
Subordinate’s level of education
0.111 0.102 0.081 0.001 20.016 20.026
Leader’s sex 0.012 0.026 0.029 0.058 0.069 0.070 Leader’s age 0.114 0.057 0.068 0.227 * * 0.157 * 0.163 *
Leader’s level of education 20.129 20.129 20.122 0.505 20.056 20.053 Number of subordinates 20.057 0.026 0.023 0.199 0.187* * 0.186 * *
R 2 0.041 0.069 Step 2 LMX (A) 0.484 * * 0.515 * * 0.506 * * 0.521 * *
Relationship length (B) 0.103 0.097 0.155 * 0.152 *
R 2 0.279 0.338 e R 2 0.238 * * 0.270 * *
Step 3 A £ B 20.128 * 20.065 R 2 0.293 0.342 e R 2 0.015 * 0.004
Note: Significant at: * p , 0.05 and * * p , 0.01
Table V. Results of hierarchical regression analyses b
( n ¼ 201)
265
that employers’ perception of whether he was treated unfairly or whether the psychological contract was breached leads to abusive supervision. Since it is improbable and impractical for managers to take revenge on their subordinates, they may instead extend abusive supervision on them (Hoobler and Brass, 2006; Tepper et al., 2004). Our study suggests that leaders with high level of EI are more capable to manage their emotions and pay more attention to subordinates’ feelings, which enables them to behave rationally, kindly and gently in the process of management.
Second, the findings revealed that abusive supervision partially mediates the relationship between leaders’ EI and subordinates’ trust, which means that leaders’ EI was a main factor affecting their abusive behaviour and abusive supervision had a negative effect on subordinates’ trust. The finding can help to understand the cause of subordinates’ low level of trust on their superiors. Based on the conclusion, we can improve leaders’ EI to reduce their abusive supervision, which would thus be an effective method to enhance subordinates’ trust on supervisors.
Third, LMX has a positive effective on subordinates’ trust and partially mediates the relationshipbetween leaders’EI and subordinates’ trust. Ourfinding is consistent with the previous research (Chaoping and Chunmei, 2011), which proposed that high level of LMX is positively related to subordinates’ trust. The finding shows that leaders may improve relationship with their subordinates by social exchange. Leaders with high level of EI are more likely to have a better way to deal with conflicts by controlling and regulating their emotion and high level of LMX causes employees to have more trust on their leaders.
Finally, relationship length moderates the relationship between LMX and affective trust, which is easy to understand. The longer the relationship length subordinates have with their leader, the more exchange between them and then subordinates can have a better idea of their leader, which furthermore, influences their level of affective trust on the leader.
4.2 The significance of our findings The theoretical hypotheses and the logistic frame were proved by empirical research and statistical analysis, so on the basis of original concepts and relevant issues in practice, we are able to give some advice on how to improve the level of organization management.
The main conclusion of this research can be referenced to manage employees effectively, to build good leader-employee relationship, as well as to construct better cooperative atmosphere. Based on the conclusion, leaders with high level of EI usually show less abusive supervision and tend to have better relationship with their subordinates, thus subordinates often have more trust to them. Therefore, as for the recruiting of managers, more attention should be paid to the candidate’s EI. EI should be taken as an important appraisal criterion in managers’ recruiting in order to pick up more excellent managers to support the organization’s development. In addition, as one kind of ability, EI can be improved by training. Petrides et al. (2004) proposed that postnatal training can be of great help in developing one’s EI. So managers can also be trained to improve their EI and communication and interpersonal skills.
It has been proved that superiors’ EI has a significant positive effect on subordinates’ personal trust. However, the approaches are diversified, in which superiors’ abusive supervision andLMX perceivedby employeesall take mediating effects. So superiorswho have less abusive supervision behavior and a better LMX relationship may get more trust
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from their subordinates. Based on the conclusion, it is available to enhance subordinates’ trust by means of reducing superiors’ abusive supervision and improving the LMX.
Leaders’ abusive supervision behavior has a negative effective on subordinates, especially on subordinates’ trust, so managers should reduce their abusive supervision and improve their relationship with subordinates, thus to form an atmosphere of trust and support in the organization. Employees will do their best in such an atmosphere. One of the necessary measures we could take is to build the monitoring and supervising systems, thus to recover the losses caused by abusive supervision.
4.3 Limitation and Future Research By bringing in abusive supervision and LMX, the paper discussed the mechanism of leaders’ EI on subordinates’ trust. Although most of the hypotheses are verified in this paper, there are still many questions worth of discussing in the future.
The major limitation of this study lies in the subjective measurement of abusive supervision and its validity in the Chinese specific environment. It was measured through the eyes of subordinates, which means that while one subordinate may view a supervisory action as abusive, another may not, so the subordinates may not have a consistent evaluation. The Chinese have a comparatively large power distance and was considered to be a collective society, so the scale developed in the West may not applicability in China. Development of more sophisticated questionnaires or even entirely different methods to assess abusivesupervision is desirable, such as view from the leader, whether there are some corresponding concepts that can measurable or controllable.
Second, Podsakoff and Organ (1986) highlighted that common method variance occurs when two or more measures arise from one source, such that any defect in the source would contaminate both measures. According to their proposal, this study adopted different methods to reduce the common method variance, we not only guaranteed the anonymity of the questionnaire and cleared that the answers were no right or wrong, but also used subordinate-superior matching questionnaire approach to collect data. Those methods could reduce the Common Method Variances to some degree, but more difficulty was added to the collecting process. This may have an effect on the universality of the conclusions.
Third, the cross-sectional nature of the research design which prevents testing for causal relationships. What’ more, in the model of this study, we only discussed leaders’ EI as the independent variable of abusive supervision, LMX and subordinates’ trust. Whether there are other influence factors is yet to be considered. As is known, behavior is the result of complex factors. So leaders’ abusive supervision to their subordinates was also affected by many factors, such as superiors’ perceive of subordinates’ working ability and poor performance. It is valuable to do more analysis and research on the generation mechanism of abusive supervision. Also the control of variables is not enough, some relevant variables were not controlled in this paper, such as intelligence quotient (IQ) and personality, which may cause explanatory power of EI on trust to be higher than reality.
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Further reading
Aryee, S., Sun, L.Y., Chen, Z.X.G. and Debrah, Y.A. (2008), “Abusive supervision and contextual performance: the mediating role of emotional exhaustion and the moderating role of work unit structure”, Management and Organization Review , Vol. 4 No. 3.
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Corresponding author Ding Xiaqi can be contacted at: [email protected]
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1. Rong Wang, Jiang Jiang. 2014. HOW NARCISSISTIC EMPLOYEES RESPOND TO ABUSIVE SUPERVISION: TWO ROLES OF NARCISSISM IN DECREASING PERCEPTION AND INCREASING DEVIANCE 1. Psychological Reports 115, 372-380. [CrossRef ]
2. Mark J. Martinko, Paul Harvey, Jeremy R. Brees, Jeremy Mackey. 2013. A review of abusive supervision research. Journal of Organizational Behavior 34, S120-S137. [CrossRef ]
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variable and trust as consequence variable
Ding Xiaqi, Tian Kun, Yang Chongsen and Gong Sufang College of Management, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how leaders’ emotional intelligence (EI) influences subordinates’ trust and to examine the roles played in the process by abusive supervision (a negative leadership) and leader-member exchange (LMX) (a positive leadership).
Design/methodology/approach – According to revelations in the case of Foxconn’s jumping events and LMX theory, this paper argues that low levels of leaders’ EI affect their subordinates’ perception of abusive supervision and tends to cause their mistrust of employers in return, further damaging the employer-employee relationship. Tension will develop or be intensified among such relationships as time evolves and relationship length extends. A superior-subordinate matching questionnaire survey was conducted among enterprises in Shenzhen, China. About 202 valid samples were eventually collected. The data were analyzed through correlation analysis, regression analysis, CFA, EFA and SEM using SPSS and LISREL.
Findings – The EI of superiors has a significant positive impact on the personal trust between subordinates and superiors, in which both abusive supervision and LMX play a partial mediating role; and the relationship length of superiors and subordinates plays a moderating role between LMX and affective trust.
Practical implications – The paper advises that when selecting leaders, more emphasis should be placed on EI, and managers should be trained to improve their emotional skills.
Originality/value – The paper extends the research on the antecedent and consequence variables of abusive supervision in Chinese enterprises, discussing both positive and negative leadership.
Keywords China, Leadership, Management skills, Employees behaviour, Trust, Interpersonal skills, Abusive supervision, Leader-member exchange, Emotional intelligence, Relationship length
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction As owners of power in organizations, leaders have great influence both on staff and organizations. For a long time, researchers have paid much attention to positive leadership such as transformational leadership, charismatic leadership and concerned on improving leadership effectiveness. However, both leaders and leadership have their dark sides. According to Kellerman (2004):
[. . .] there has long been a partiality to the positive aspects in traditional study on leaders and leadership, while this partiality can trick us into perceiving the essence of leadership. Only with study from various aspects can we get an all-around insight of this field. One way to increase the probability of good leadership is to encourage as many people as possible to study, teach and practice it. But another way is to encourage the exploration into bad leadership.
Bad leadership is as ubiquitous as it is insidious in organizations and it must be more carefully examined. Besides, to understand good leadership, we must recognize and study the opposite of good leadership. “We are learning as much from leaders which
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DOI 10.1108/17506141211236695
are considered bad ones as from those good ones” (Kellerman, 2004). Therefore, studying the “dark” side of leaders is supposed to make some contribution to the amendment of theoretical systems of leadership.
Destructive behaviors are ubiquitous in our workplace. Researchers have different concepts for it, such as “abusive supervision”, “bully” and “aggression”. Abusive supervision is not only negatively related to employees’ job satisfaction and work performance, but also increases their turnover intention and even some senseless acts, which would do great harm to organizations. In 2010, the Foxconn jump event has set off an animated discussion, in which frontline managers often adopt mocking, venting and discrimination behavior during the production process, the negative effect caused by abusive supervision was widely considered as one of the most important reasons.
Based on evidence from enterprises in Chinese culture background, this paper focused on abusive supervision and LMX, in which EI played as antecedent and trust as consequence variables.
2. Literature review, hypotheses and methods 2.1 Relationship between abusive supervision, LMX and subordinates’ trust Tepper (2000) had pioneered the concept of “abusive supervision”. In his view, abusive supervision refers to subordinates’ perceptions of the extent to which supervisors engage in the sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors, excluding physical contact. Some aspects of this definition are of specific interest. First, abusive supervision is subordinates’ perceptions, which means that while one subordinate may view a supervisory action as abusive, another may not. Second, abusive supervisory behaviors refer only to the behaviors themselves, not to the intentions of actions. Third, abusive supervision does not refer to physical contact. Physical contact would fall under the spectrum of violent behaviors. Finally, abusive supervision refers to a “sustained display” of negative supervisory behaviors, not just a one-time event (Tepper, 2000; Harris et al., 2007). The studies on abusive supervision demonstrate the negative impact abusive supervision has on a variety of individual outcomes such as higher levels of anxiety (Bordia and Tang, 2009), helplessness (Ashforth, 1997), increased levels of work-family conflict, turnover intention and emotion exhaustion (Tepper, 2000) and lower levels of mental health and self-esteem (Hobman et al., 2009). Moreover, abusive supervision is also negatively related to self-efficacy (Duffy et al., 2002) and job satisfaction (Tepper, 2000) and so on.
Among the consequence variables of abusive supervision. We believe it is important to pay attention to the variable of trust. Trust is essential for cooperation. It is the most direct, economical and effective way for leaders to improve the effectiveness of organizations (Kramer and Tyler, 1996). Improving subordinates’ trust in their supervisors will help form a harmonious relationship in the organizations resulting in organizational citizenship behavior and improving subordinates’ job performance, loyalty and willingness to obey supervisor’ decisions and organization regulations, as well as reducing uncertainty, lowering transaction costs enhancing internal resources to more rational use, thus improving organizational effectiveness (Barney and Hansen, 1994).
According to Whitener et al. (1998) social exchange and mutual benefiting which we call reciprocity are important basis of trust. But there can also be negative reciprocity, where negative treatment is returned or repaid with negative behaviors
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(Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005). The leaders would win trust from subordinates if their behaviors conform to the principles of openness, fairness and impartiality (Hua, 2008). In contrast, if a leader indulged in abusive behavior, it will inevitably level down subordinates’ trust in leaders. (Sayles, 1989; Sims and Lorenzi, 1992). Several studies argue that trust is an important outcome that either increases or decreases through time as a result of favorable or unfavorable experiences in workplace. Abusive supervision is a particularly unpleasant circumstance that can be predicted to contribute to feelings of distrust and negative attitudes towards the organization (Tepper, 2007).
In summary, we believe that in order to enhance subordinates’ trust, leaders need to show applicable attitudes and behaviors, such as encouraging subordinates, coming forward with help to their work and identifying with their values, so that the subordinates would pay back high level of trust and hard work. If leaders present more abusive behaviors during the management process, it will level down subordinates’ trust in leaders. These arguments help to yield the following hypothesis:
H1. Abusive supervision has a negative effect on subordinates’ trust.
As previously stated, one way to understand the mechanism of leaders’ behavior on subordinates’ trust is to treat the relationship between organization and employees as social exchange. Processes of social association can be considered as an exchange of activity, tangible or intangible and more or less rewarding or costly, between at least two persons (Homans, 1961). When people are gathered together, before common norms or goals or role expectations have crystallized among them, the advantages to begin from entering into exchange relations furnish incentives for social interaction and the exchange processes serve as mechanisms for regulating social interaction (Blau, 1964). The basic principle of socialexchange may be this: an individualwho suppliesrewarding services to another obligates him, thus to discharge this obligation, the obligated one must furnish benefits to the first in return. Mauss (1954) claimed that, people not only exchange economic value, they exchange courtesies, entertainments, ritual, military assistance and so on, just as one part of a wide and enduring contact. When there is no way to assure an appropriate return for a favor, social exchange requires trusting others to discharge their obligations. Typically, however, exchange relations evolve in a slow process, starting with minor transactions in which little trust is required because little risk is involved (Blau, 1964). Graen etal. (1982)develop a new taxonomy of approaches to leadership. They discussed LMX as a relationship-based approach to leadership. In Jin et al.,’s (2007) study, LMX plays a leading role in the process of subordinates’ trust to leaders. The higher level of LMX, the higher level of trust leaders will get. The second hypothesis of this paper is:
H2. LMX has a positive effect on subordinates’ trust.
2.2 Relationships between emotional intelligence, abusive supervision and LMX Emotional intelligence (EI) can be described as an ability to reason with emotions, to assimilate emotion-related feelings and to manage them. It is also explained by one’s ability to perceive emotions accurately and to reflectively regulate emotions in a way that promotes emotional and intellectual growth (Goleman, 2001). Capacity for the identification, control and management of emotion makes people easier to develop social competencies that include constructive communications, positive interpersonal relationships and good management skills. Waldman et al. (2001) defined the transformational leadership as a combination that would benefit both leaders
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and subordinates. The transformational leader behaviors may include describing a good vision, conveying sense of mission and motivating employees. The advantageous influence of those behaviors may make subordinates feel easy at work and express high level of trust. Kellett et al. (2002) found that leaders’ EI has a significant positive correlation with relation-oriented and task-oriented leader behavior. Sosik and Megarian (2001) believed leaders’ EI can influence his transformational leadership, with psychological empowerment as a moderating variable. Purkable (2003) held that leaders’ EI had a significant positive correlation with some variables of leadership behavior. Kellett et al. (2002), Ferres and Connell (2004) and Bryson (2004) proved that some dimensions of leaders’ EI have significant positive correlations with leadership. From the definition of abusive supervision we can see that there are many opposite features between abusive supervision and transformational leadership. Based on the above discussion, we make the third hypothesis as below.
H3.The lower EI levels of superiors, the higher level of abusive supervision subordinates would perceive superiors with a high level of EI have good communication and interpersonal skills and can communicate with their subordinates timely and properly. They offer support when subordinates get stuck, so the subordinates begin to have trust and expectations on them, during which a high level of leader-subordinate exchange comes into being. On the contrary, if superiors ignore their subordinates’ emotion and there is little communication between employees and superiors, employees will gradually become disappointed with superiors and have little trust and expectations on superiors, thus causing low levels of leader-member exchange (LMX). In practice, leaders with high levels of EI behave maturely and modestly in work and are more likely to settle disputes in a peaceful and appropriate way(Smith, 2006). So employees are quite willing to establish cooperative relationship with such leaders, expecting to get more opportunities for advancement. All these arguments help us to form H4:
H4. The higher EI levels of superiors, the more of LMX subordinates would perceive.
2.3 The moderating role of relationship length If abusive supervision takes place frequently or lasts for a long time, it invariably causes employees’ antipathy and then brings about subordinates’ distrust. Furthermore, it takes time for people to know each other. There’s a common saying in China that you can know a person only after a long time. Only when people get along for a time can they trust each other. So we can speculate that the relationship length affects the relationship between superiors’ abusive supervision and subordinates’ trust.
In addition, the LMX is also affected by relationship length. After a long time of mutual benefiting of superiors and their subordinates, their cooperative relationship is validated and consolidated. The cooperative relationship and mutual benefiting in the long run can help subordinates get superiors’ praise, as well as help superiors get their subordinates’ trust in return. So relationship length influences the relationship between LMX and subordinates’ trust. To be concrete, the longer relationship length and the higher LMX, the more subordinates’ trust:
H5. Relationship length affects the relationship between leaders’ abusive supervision and subordinates’ trust.
H6. Relationship length affects the relationship between LMX and subordinates’ trust.
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2.4 The mediating roles of abusive supervision and LMX in the relationship between EI and subordinate’s trust The above discussion is intended to explain that leaders’ EI can affect subordinates’ trust through two different ways: abusive supervision and LMX. Our last two hypotheses are as follows:
H7. Abusive supervision partially mediates the relationship between leaders’ EI and subordinates’ trust.
H8. LMX partially mediates the relationship between leaders’ EI and subordinates’ trust.
All our eight hypotheses can be described by this model (Figure 1).
2.5 Methods 2.5.1 Measuring tools. Leaders’ EI. We use the WLEIS questionnaire of Wong et al. (2002) to measure leaders’ EI. There are 16 terms, including four dimensions: self-emotional evaluation (e.g. usually I know why I have some feeling), the cognition and evaluation of others’ emotion (e.g. usually I can guess my friends’ emotion from their behaviors), emotional control (e.g. I can calm down quickly when angry) and self-motivation with emotion (e.g. I often encourage myself to do the best). The questionnaire is of high reliability and validity. Items were rated proteges on a five-point scale ranging from 1 (disagree strongly) to (agree strongly).
Abusive supervision. The questionnaire of 15 terms by Tepper (2000), which was revised with the method of back-translation by Taiwan Scholar Wu Zongyou was employed. Items were rated proteges on a five-point scale ranging from 1 (disagree strongly) to (agree strongly).
Leader-member exchange. The widely used LMX-7 scale was applied in the paper, which was proposed by Graen et al. (1982). Hui et al. (1999) translated it into Chinese and it was used widely in Chinese culture. We use the Chinese scale in our study. The coefficient of internal consistency of the Chinese scale is between 0.80 and 0.90. Hui, Law and Chen revised it during translation. They found that the
Figure 1. Structural relations
261
reliability of the scale was 0.86 in Chinese companies. 7-Likert was used from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The high score means high level of LMX.
Subordinates’ trust in leaders. The questionnaire of subordinates’ trust to their leaders was worked out by McAllister (1995), which contains 11 questions with five emotional trust and six cognitive trust ones. The coefficients of internal consistency of emotional trust subscale and cognitive trust subscale are 0.89 and 0.91 in his research. The items of the two subscales are of high load in confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). 7-Likert was used from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), with high scores representing high employee trust.
C on tr ol v ar ia ble s. Th e q ue st io nn air e inc lu de d r esp on den ts ’ a ge , gender, education level, tenure with current leader and so on, all of which are control variables.
2.5.2 Data collection. Paired questionnaire surveys were conducted on both employees and their leaders. Employees finished scales on their perceived abusive supervision, LMX and their trust in superiors; their leaders finished the questionnaire on EI. Finally, 201 valid questionnaires were received (response rate 57 percent) from enterprises in Shenzhen, China. Among subordinates 110 were female (55 percent), 91 were male (45 percent). The age of subordinates was 18 to 50, with an average of 27. The supervisor sample reported an average age of 34 range from 24 to 56 and 92 were female (46 percent), 109 were male (53 percent). It was worth of noting that just as expected, the mean of abusive supervision was 1.39, which was similar to those found in others studies where mean levels of abusive supervision have ranged from lows of 1.26 (sample 1 in Tepper et al., 2004) and 1.38 (Tepper, 2000) to highs of 1.70 (Zellars et al., 2002).
3. Data analysis and results 3.1 The mediating roles of LMX and abusive supervision Table I provides the intercorrelations of the latent variables. Supporting H1 to H4, abusive supervision had a negatively impact on subordinates’ trust and LMX significantly positively influenced the affective and cognitive trust. It also showed that EI significantly influenced the hypothesized mediator of LMX and abusive supervision in the predicted directions.
CFA was used to examine the measurement model. The analysis results were shown in Table II. x 2/df of all the four scales were less than 2.5, meanwhile the SRMR
Variables 1 2 3 4 5
1. Emotional intelligence (0.813) 2. Abusive supervision 20.248 * (0.912) 3. LMX 0.374 * 20.359 * (0.728) 4. Affective trust 0.283 * 20.421 * 0.472 * (0.774) 5. Cognitive trust 0.340 * 20.468 * 0.508 * 0.550 * (0.860)
Notes: Significant at: * p , 0.01; n ¼ 201; figures in parentheses are alpha internal consistency reliabilities
Table I. Intercorrelations among the latent variables
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were all less than 0.08 and NNFI CFI IFI GFI were all greater than 0.9. The goodness of fit statistics indicated a good fit to the data. To evaluate the mediation of LMX and abusive supervision, we compared the fit of three partially mediated models to the fully mediated model:
(1) a model with two direct paths from EI to the two outcome variables;
(2) a model with a direct path from EI to affective trust; and
(3) a model with a direct path from EI to cognitive trust.
The results were presented in Table III. As shown in that table, the partially mediated model 1 was the best fitting model. Results from this indicate that LMX and abusive supervision partially mediate the influence of EI on subordinates’ trust and provide support for H7 and H8 .
Figure 2 shows the LISREL estimates for the partially mediated model 1 sized paths. As shown in the figure, EI was positively related to LMX quality, which in turn was related to the affective and cognitive trust, meanwhile, abusive supervision partially mediates the relationship between leaders’ EI and subordinates’ trust. H7 and H8 were supported.
3.2 The moderating role of relationship length To examine the moderation hypotheses, we performed two separate hierarchical regression analyses. Each analysis had three steps. Table IV presents the test of the moderating effect that relationship length has on the relationship between abusive supervision and affective trust, cognitive trust. The control variables were entered in the first step. In the second step, we entered the “main effects” (abusive supervision and relationship length). Finally, the abusive supervision X relationship length variable was entered in the third step. Both variables were mean-centered as is suggested for variables that are to be constituents of product terms (Aiken and West, 1991). Table IV presents the results of hierarchical regression. The results show no
Measurement model x 2 df x
2/df RMSEA NNFI CFI IFI GFI
EI 97.24 45 2.161 0.076 0.94 0.96 0.96 0.93 LMX 12.02 7 1.717 0.060 0.96 0.98 0.98 0.98 Abusive supervision 113.27 50 2.265 0.080 0.97 0.98 0.98 0.91 Trust 25.62 12 2.135 0.075 0.97 0.99 0.99 0.96
Table II. Results of measurement
model fit ( n ¼ 201)
Models x 2 df X2/df RMSEA NNFI CFI IFI GFI
1. Fully mediated model 267.92 127 2.11 0.074 0.95 0.96 0.96 0.87 2. Partially mediated model 1a 236.73 124 1.91 0.067 0.96 0.96 0.96 0.88 3. Partially mediated model 2b 258.08 125 2.06 0.073 0.95 0.96 0.96 0.87 4. Partially mediated model 3c 251.67 125 2.10 0.071 0.95 0.96 0.96 0.87
Notes: n ¼ 201; ain comparison to the fully mediated model, partially mediated model1adds two paths from EI to the two outcomes: affective trust and cognitive trust; bpartially mediated model 2 adds a path from EI to affective trust; cpartially mediated model 3 adds path from EI to cognitive trust
Table III. Results of model
comparisons
263
prediction that relationship length moderates the relationship between abusive supervision and affective trust ( b ¼ 20.028, p . 0.05) cognitive trust ( b ¼ 20.057, p . 0.05), H5 was not supported.
Table V presents the test of the moderating effect that relationship length has on the relationship between LMX and affective trust cognitive trust. The control variables were entered in the first step. In the second step, we entered the “main effects” (LMX and relationship length). Finally, the LMX X relationship length variable was entered in the third step. The results show that relationship length moderates the relationship
Dependent variables Affective trust Cognitive trust
Independent variables Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
Step 1 Subordinate’s sex 0.047 20.019 20.017 0.144 * 0.054 0.058 Subordinate’s age 0.096 0.033 0.034 20.053 20.143 20.139 Subordinate’s level of education
0.111 0.049 0.053 0.001 20.084 20.077
Leader’s sex 0.012 20.023 20.024 0.058 0.009 0.007 Leader’s age 0.114 0.041 0.038 0.227 * * 0.126 0.119 Leader’s level of education 20.129 20.129 20.128 0.505 20.053 20.052 Number of subordinates 20.057 0.009 0.012 0.199 0.186* * 0.191 R 2 0.041 0.069 Step 2 Abusive supervision (A) 20.365 * * 20.367 * * 20.491 * * 20.495 * *
Relationship length (B) 0.119 0.116 0.171 * 0.166 *
R 2 0.176 0.316 e R 2 0.135 * * 0.247 * *
Step 3 A £ B 20.028 20.057 R 2 0.177 0.319 e R 2 0.001 0.003
Note: Significant at: * p , 0.05 and * * p , 0.01
Table IV. Results of hierarchical regression analyses a ( n ¼ 201)
Figure 2. Estimated path coefficients of the partially mediated model 1
–0.19**
0.28**
0.38**
0.48**
0.47**
–0.16**
–0.52**
0.45**
Emotional
intelligence
Abusive
supervision
Cognitive
trust
LMX
Affective
trust
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between LMX and affective trust ( b ¼ 20.128, p , 0.05), however, cognitive trust ( b ¼ 20.057, p . 0.05) did not significant, partially supported H6 .
In sum, these results provide support for the structural relations among them. In particular, EI influence abusive supervision and LMX, furthermore, abusive supervision and LMX partially mediate the relationship between leaders’ EI and subordinates’ trust on leaders and the relationship length moderates the relationship between LMX and affective trust.
4. Discussion and conclusion 4.1 The main contributions Through the introduction of abusive supervision, LMX and EI, this paper studies the mechanism of EI on subordinates’ trust. The main contributions of this study are as follows.
First, the paper discussed the antecedent factor of abusive supervision, which was supported by empirical data. We found that the EI level of superiors has a significant negative impact on abusive supervision. Grandey (2000) suggested that intelligent individuals with higher EI can keep continuous positive moods and feelings. In other words, Leaders who have high level of EI tend to use less supervised behavior in the management process. Leaders with low level of EI are more likely to use abusive supervision. By discussing the influence factor of abusive supervision, we concluded the way abusive behaviour affects organizations and employees, thus helping to find effectivemethods to reduce such behaviors. In theprevious, there were only a few papers focusing on the cause of abusive supervision, in which abusive supervision was mainly considered as a kind of aggression of supervisor’s. Hoobler and Brass’s study showed
Dependent variables Affective trust Cognitive trust
Independent variables Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
Step 1 Subordinate’s sex 0.047 0.040 0.037 0.144* 0.134 * 0.133 *
Subordinate’s age 0.096 0.031 0.010 20.053 20.140 20.150 *
Subordinate’s level of education
0.111 0.102 0.081 0.001 20.016 20.026
Leader’s sex 0.012 0.026 0.029 0.058 0.069 0.070 Leader’s age 0.114 0.057 0.068 0.227 * * 0.157 * 0.163 *
Leader’s level of education 20.129 20.129 20.122 0.505 20.056 20.053 Number of subordinates 20.057 0.026 0.023 0.199 0.187* * 0.186 * *
R 2 0.041 0.069 Step 2 LMX (A) 0.484 * * 0.515 * * 0.506 * * 0.521 * *
Relationship length (B) 0.103 0.097 0.155 * 0.152 *
R 2 0.279 0.338 e R 2 0.238 * * 0.270 * *
Step 3 A £ B 20.128 * 20.065 R 2 0.293 0.342 e R 2 0.015 * 0.004
Note: Significant at: * p , 0.05 and * * p , 0.01
Table V. Results of hierarchical regression analyses b
( n ¼ 201)
265
that employers’ perception of whether he was treated unfairly or whether the psychological contract was breached leads to abusive supervision. Since it is improbable and impractical for managers to take revenge on their subordinates, they may instead extend abusive supervision on them (Hoobler and Brass, 2006; Tepper et al., 2004). Our study suggests that leaders with high level of EI are more capable to manage their emotions and pay more attention to subordinates’ feelings, which enables them to behave rationally, kindly and gently in the process of management.
Second, the findings revealed that abusive supervision partially mediates the relationship between leaders’ EI and subordinates’ trust, which means that leaders’ EI was a main factor affecting their abusive behaviour and abusive supervision had a negative effect on subordinates’ trust. The finding can help to understand the cause of subordinates’ low level of trust on their superiors. Based on the conclusion, we can improve leaders’ EI to reduce their abusive supervision, which would thus be an effective method to enhance subordinates’ trust on supervisors.
Third, LMX has a positive effective on subordinates’ trust and partially mediates the relationshipbetween leaders’EI and subordinates’ trust. Ourfinding is consistent with the previous research (Chaoping and Chunmei, 2011), which proposed that high level of LMX is positively related to subordinates’ trust. The finding shows that leaders may improve relationship with their subordinates by social exchange. Leaders with high level of EI are more likely to have a better way to deal with conflicts by controlling and regulating their emotion and high level of LMX causes employees to have more trust on their leaders.
Finally, relationship length moderates the relationship between LMX and affective trust, which is easy to understand. The longer the relationship length subordinates have with their leader, the more exchange between them and then subordinates can have a better idea of their leader, which furthermore, influences their level of affective trust on the leader.
4.2 The significance of our findings The theoretical hypotheses and the logistic frame were proved by empirical research and statistical analysis, so on the basis of original concepts and relevant issues in practice, we are able to give some advice on how to improve the level of organization management.
The main conclusion of this research can be referenced to manage employees effectively, to build good leader-employee relationship, as well as to construct better cooperative atmosphere. Based on the conclusion, leaders with high level of EI usually show less abusive supervision and tend to have better relationship with their subordinates, thus subordinates often have more trust to them. Therefore, as for the recruiting of managers, more attention should be paid to the candidate’s EI. EI should be taken as an important appraisal criterion in managers’ recruiting in order to pick up more excellent managers to support the organization’s development. In addition, as one kind of ability, EI can be improved by training. Petrides et al. (2004) proposed that postnatal training can be of great help in developing one’s EI. So managers can also be trained to improve their EI and communication and interpersonal skills.
It has been proved that superiors’ EI has a significant positive effect on subordinates’ personal trust. However, the approaches are diversified, in which superiors’ abusive supervision andLMX perceivedby employeesall take mediating effects. So superiorswho have less abusive supervision behavior and a better LMX relationship may get more trust
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from their subordinates. Based on the conclusion, it is available to enhance subordinates’ trust by means of reducing superiors’ abusive supervision and improving the LMX.
Leaders’ abusive supervision behavior has a negative effective on subordinates, especially on subordinates’ trust, so managers should reduce their abusive supervision and improve their relationship with subordinates, thus to form an atmosphere of trust and support in the organization. Employees will do their best in such an atmosphere. One of the necessary measures we could take is to build the monitoring and supervising systems, thus to recover the losses caused by abusive supervision.
4.3 Limitation and Future Research By bringing in abusive supervision and LMX, the paper discussed the mechanism of leaders’ EI on subordinates’ trust. Although most of the hypotheses are verified in this paper, there are still many questions worth of discussing in the future.
The major limitation of this study lies in the subjective measurement of abusive supervision and its validity in the Chinese specific environment. It was measured through the eyes of subordinates, which means that while one subordinate may view a supervisory action as abusive, another may not, so the subordinates may not have a consistent evaluation. The Chinese have a comparatively large power distance and was considered to be a collective society, so the scale developed in the West may not applicability in China. Development of more sophisticated questionnaires or even entirely different methods to assess abusivesupervision is desirable, such as view from the leader, whether there are some corresponding concepts that can measurable or controllable.
Second, Podsakoff and Organ (1986) highlighted that common method variance occurs when two or more measures arise from one source, such that any defect in the source would contaminate both measures. According to their proposal, this study adopted different methods to reduce the common method variance, we not only guaranteed the anonymity of the questionnaire and cleared that the answers were no right or wrong, but also used subordinate-superior matching questionnaire approach to collect data. Those methods could reduce the Common Method Variances to some degree, but more difficulty was added to the collecting process. This may have an effect on the universality of the conclusions.
Third, the cross-sectional nature of the research design which prevents testing for causal relationships. What’ more, in the model of this study, we only discussed leaders’ EI as the independent variable of abusive supervision, LMX and subordinates’ trust. Whether there are other influence factors is yet to be considered. As is known, behavior is the result of complex factors. So leaders’ abusive supervision to their subordinates was also affected by many factors, such as superiors’ perceive of subordinates’ working ability and poor performance. It is valuable to do more analysis and research on the generation mechanism of abusive supervision. Also the control of variables is not enough, some relevant variables were not controlled in this paper, such as intelligence quotient (IQ) and personality, which may cause explanatory power of EI on trust to be higher than reality.
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Aryee, S., Sun, L.Y., Chen, Z.X.G. and Debrah, Y.A. (2008), “Abusive supervision and contextual performance: the mediating role of emotional exhaustion and the moderating role of work unit structure”, Management and Organization Review , Vol. 4 No. 3.
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Corresponding author Ding Xiaqi can be contacted at: [email protected]
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