Goal Commitment Buffers the Negative Effects of Perceived Abusive Supervision

Abstract

The effects of abusive supervision may be more intricate than what reason would suggest. To examine why individuals may respond differently to perceptions of supervisor abusive, this study relies on goal-setting theory to present a model that accounts for the influence of abusive supervision on job performance and organizational deviance. To be precise, motivation control and self-defeating cognition are proposed to mediate the interaction of perceived abusive supervision with goal commitment in predicting organizational deviance and job performance. In particular, the extent to which goal commitment alleviates the deleterious effects of abusive supervision is examined such that when goal commitment is high, the indirect effects of perceived abusive supervision on job performance and organizational deviance via motivation control and self-defeating cognition were predicted to be weaker. The proposed model was supported by multisource and multiwave data. The understanding of when the deleterious effects of supervisor abuse as perceived by followers are likely might help the human resource personnel to adopt measures that buffer against such outcomes.