Research Article
The Effect of Supervisor's Psychological Entitlement on Subordinate Creativity through Abusive Supervision and the Moderating Effect of Subordinate Proactive Personality
1 Hanyang University
Published: January 2019 · Vol. 48 No. 6 · pp. 1569-1590
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17287/kmr.2019.48.6.1569
Full Text
Abstract
Due to increasing incidents of abusive supervision in the workplace, mounting research has investigated the antecedents and consequences of abusive supervision. However, there is a little simultaneous examination of the antecedents and consequences of abusive supervision. To fill this gap, this study identifies supervisor psychological entitlement as an antecedent of abusive supervision and employee creativity as a consequence of abusive supervision and explores the relationship between supervisor psychological entitlement, abusive supervision, and employee creativity, as well as the moderating role of employee proactive personality. More precisely, we propose that supervisor psychological entitlement is positively associated with abusive supervision, which in turn negatively affects employee creativity. We further predict that the negative effect of abusive supervision on employee creativity is weaker when employee proactive personality is high than when it is low. To test our hypotheses, we collected surveys from 397 supervisor-subordinate dyads in various South Korean organizations. The results of hierarchical regression analyses provided support for all our hypotheses. As predicted, supervisor psychological entitlement exerted a negative effect on employee creativity through abusive supervision. Furthermore, employee proactive personality played a buffering role in the negative relationship between abusive supervision on employee creativity. These findings have implications for research on abusive supervision and managerial implications to cope with abusive supervision in organizations.
