When managing the boss at a cost: perceived threat to hierarchy and supervisor ostracism

Managing boss, a proactive behavior in which employees align their actions with supervisors' priorities, has been widely recognized for its positive effects on employee performance and supervisor-subordinate relationships. However, little is known about its potential negative interpersonal consequences from the supervisor's perspective. Drawing on social information processing theory and status-based perspectives on hierarchical threat, this study examines the conditional process through which managing boss (MB) relates to supervisor ostracism (SO). Using a three-wave, time-lagged survey of 452 supervisor-subordinate dyads in Chinese organizational contexts, the results indicated that MB was positively associated with supervisors' perceived threat to hierarchy (PTH). However, the simple mediating effect of PTH was not supported. Instead, a second-stage moderated mediation effect emerged, such that the indirect effect of MB on SO via PTH was significant only when supervisors exhibited high power distance (PD). Specifically, PD moderated the relationship between PTH and SO, such that the positive association was stronger under high PD conditions. These findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the potential interpersonal costs of proactive employee behaviors by showing that managing boss is not uniformly interpreted as threatening, but may evoke defensive supervisory responses under hierarchy-sensitive conditions. The study also extends research on hierarchical dynamics, status threat, and supervisor-subordinate interactions, while offering practical implications for managing proactive employee behaviors in culturally and hierarchically sensitive organizational contexts.