Patricia Meglich, Sean Valentine and Dale Eesley
In response to the call for deeper investigation of abusive supervision (Martinko et al., 2013), the purpose of this paper is to examine perceived supervisor competence and…
Abstract
Purpose
In response to the call for deeper investigation of abusive supervision (Martinko et al., 2013), the purpose of this paper is to examine perceived supervisor competence and perceived employee mobility (an individual’s perception of his/her ability to obtain new employment) to better understand contextual and individual factors that potentially influence the degree of harmful supervisory behaviors experienced by employees.
Design/methodology/approach
Responses from 749 survey participants were analyzed to determine the impact of perceived supervisor competence and perceived employee mobility on perceptions of abusive supervisory conduct. A bootstrapping-based mediation analysis (Hayes, 2012) was used to test for mediation by the variables of interest.
Findings
The authors found that perceived supervisor competence is associated with weakened perceptions of abusive supervision, and that this relationship is partially mediated by respondents’ perceived occupational mobility.
Research limitations/implications
The data are cross-sectional and were collected with a self-report questionnaire and compiled utilizing student-enumerators. The sample was also regional in scope and lacked information that would indicate if respondents were also supervisors.
Practical implications
These results imply that perceptions of abusive supervision can be mitigated by building stronger competencies in supervisors, which translates into greater individual employee perceived mobility. Human resource (HR) professionals can implement practices to decrease the likelihood of abusive supervisory conduct by ensuring that supervisors are competent in their jobs, facilitating a coaching/mentoring process between supervisors and subordinates and establishing/maintaining an effective developmental performance feedback process for supervisors.
Social implications
Since perceived supervisor competence is one element of reducing abusive conduct, while also enhancing subordinate perceived mobility, selection and training efforts should focus on hiring and preparing individuals to be effective work supervisors. Enhancing worker capabilities and marketability may result in greater perceived occupational mobility and reduced perceptions of abuse by supervisors.
Originality/value
These results lend support to the argument that perceptions of abusive supervision can be mitigated by building stronger competencies in supervisors, which translates into greater perceived mobility among employees. Organizations may benefit through lowered employee turnover, employees may enjoy more harmonious, supportive relationships with their supervisors and HR staff may benefit by having competent supervisors who do not generate employee complaints and intentions to quit.
Details
Keywords
Dale T. Eesley, Yukti Sharma, Ramendra Singh and Birud Sindhav
Entrepreneurship literature recognizes the founder’s involvement as a salient factor in determining the success of startups. Nevertheless, its role in conjunction with the…
Abstract
Purpose
Entrepreneurship literature recognizes the founder’s involvement as a salient factor in determining the success of startups. Nevertheless, its role in conjunction with the marketing roles of founders has been relatively unexplored. Very little is known about how founder’s involvement in marketing tasks (i.e. developing products, sales and customers) helps attain success in early startups. To fill this knowledge gap, this study aims to qualitatively investigate the founder’s involvement under three vital functional areas (i.e. sales, customer development and product development) and also explain their entwined nature of the relationship as the early-stage startups grow to become a scalable businesses.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used purposive sampling for conducting in-depth interviews with 11 startup founders in the midwestern city of the USA. A constant comparative method was used to code the interview transcripts, while juxtaposing them with extant literature.
Findings
Using three levels of axial coding, this study identified 32 descriptive codes, 11 aggregate codes and 2 interpretive codes. Following this, the authors present five propositions that illustrate the relationship between founders’ involvement, customer development, product development and sales.
Practical implications
This study offers guidelines to founders on how they could generate initial sales, identify early customers and build and sustain mutually beneficial relationships with them.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the extant literature on entrepreneurship and innovation literature. It presents motivation and potential processes, including systematic activities performed by founders in generating sales in conjunction with customer development and product development, thereby making a novel contribution.