Predictors of Abusive Supervision: Supervisor Perceptions of Deep-Level Dissimilarity, Relationship Conflict, and Subordinate Performance

Abstract

The moral exclusion literature identifies three previously unexamined predictors of abusive supervision: supervisor perceptions of deep-level dissimilarity, relationship conflict, and subordinate performance. Invoking theory and research on workplace diversity, relationship conflict, and victim precipitation, we model the three predictors as associated with abusive supervision. Path-analytic tests using data collected from supervisor-subordinate dyads at two time points suggest that supervisor perceptions of relationship conflict and subordinate performance mediate the relationship between perceived deep-level dissimilarity and abusive supervision and that relationship conflict mediates that between perceived deep-level dissimilarity and abusive supervision when supervisors perceive subordinates as having low performance.