The Bright Side of the Dark Side: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom of Abusive Supervision

Abusive supervision is a growing problem confronting organizations. Thus far, research has mainly focused on the dark side of abusive supervision, yet given anecdotal accounts that abusive supervision can be associated with positive outcomes, more theory and research is needed to uncover the potentially bright side of abusive supervision. To this end, the five empirical papers in this symposium consider the bright side of abusive supervision by: (1) examining different sources of perceived abusive supervision (i.e., experienced abusive supervision and observing coworkers); (2) identifying various reactions and outcomes of abusive supervision from targeted subordinates (e.g., OCB, deviance, ethical leadership, well-being, and job performance), and third party observers (e.g., coworker protective behavior); (3) highlighting emotional (e.g., anger, guilt), psychological (e.g., justice perceptions, performance pressure), and behavioral (e.g., disidentification with the perpetrator) mechanisms linking abusive supervision to outcomes; (4) exploring first stage moderators (e.g., moral identity, abusive supervision attributions, and retaliation) that impact the abusive supervision- mediator variable relationships; (5) exploring second stage moderators (e.g., follower perceived ability, overall justice) that affect mediator-outcome relationships. The papers included in this symposium draw on various prominent organizational theories and use strong methodological approaches (e.g. experimental design, multi-source data, time- separated data) to test their predictions. In addition, the contributors to this symposium are diverse in that they are from different institutions in different countries (Canada, China, Singapore, and USA). This symposium will make a contribution to the 2016 Academy of Management Conference by adding new perspectives to the abusive supervision research, challenging the conventional wisdom on abusive supervision, and evoking interesting discussions among management researchers. A Cost-Benefit Approach to Understanding Prosocial Reactions to Observed Supervisor Abuse Presenter: Manuela Priesemuth; Villanova U. Presenter: Marshall Schminke; U. of Central Florida When the Trickle-Down Peters Out: Why Some Abused Supervisors