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Hostile climate, abusive supervision, and employee coping: does conscientiousness matter?
Mary B Mawritz1, Scott B Dust2, Christian J Resick1
1Department of Management, LeBow College of Business, Drexel University.
The Journal of Applied Psychology
|February 12, 2014
Summary
Employees cope with hostile workplaces through organization-directed deviance and psychological withdrawal. Supervisor conscientiousness buffers against abusive supervision, while less conscientious employees engage in deviance when stressed.
Area of Science:
- Organizational Psychology
- Occupational Health Psychology
Background:
- Hostile work environments are significant stressors for employees.
- Transactional theory of stress provides a framework for understanding coping mechanisms.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine how employees cope with hostile work environments.
- To investigate the moderating role of conscientiousness in the stress-coping process.
- To explore the mediating role of abusive supervision.
Main Methods:
- Survey data collected from employees and their immediate supervisors.
- Analysis of transactional theory of stress, organization-directed deviance, psychological withdrawal, abusive supervision, and conscientiousness.
- Moderated mediation analysis.
Main Results:
- Hostile climate perceptions predict organization-directed deviance and psychological withdrawal.
- Supervisor conscientiousness negatively predicts abusive supervision.
- Employee conscientiousness moderates the relationship between abusive supervision and organization-directed deviance.
- Abusive supervision mediates the relationship between hostile climate perceptions and employee coping behaviors.
Conclusions:
- Conscientious supervisors buffer employees from hostile work environments.
- Less conscientious employees are more prone to organization-directed deviance under stress.
- Psychological withdrawal is a common coping mechanism for all employees in hostile environments.
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