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Although work-related antecedents of abusive supervision are well-known, knowledge on the cross-domain antecedents of this destructive leadership behavior is scarce. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate off-the-job supervisors’ after-work experiences that may influence their work behavior. The authors explore how and when a supervisor’s poor recovery experiences lead to abusive supervisory behaviors through a negative start-of-workday mood for high vs low supervisor sleep quality.

The authors conducted a single-source, three-phase field study (N = 422) to test the proposed moderated mediation model for participants from a large telecommunications company located in Anhui province, People’s Republic of China.

Poor recovery experiences in the supervisor’s personal life can spill over to their work domain and provoke abusive supervisory behavior through the mediating effect of a negative start-of-workday mood. Moreover, a supervisor’s good night’s sleep (i.e. first-stage moderator) serves as a key mitigating factor to diminish the negative start-of-workday mood resulting from a lack of relaxation, mastery experiences and control experiences (except for the lack of psychological detachment from work) and lessens abusive supervision.

This study contributes to the literature examining off-the-job events to understand the antecedents of abusive supervision that are beyond organizations’ control but significantly influence workplace behaviors, showing that not all antecedents of abusive supervision exist in the workplace; some are transferred from the home domain through nonvisible moods. Finally, the inclusion of sleep quality as a first-stage moderator provides insights on preventing abusive supervision caused by nonwork-related events. This adds a unique dimension to the abusive supervision literature by highlighting factors in the home domain that can prevent negative spillovers to the work domain. The authors conclude with some theoretical and practical implications for researchers and practitioners.

Expanding on the research of the antecedents of abusive supervision, this study aims to explore supervisor role overload as a supervisor-level predictor of abusive supervision. Based on transactional stress theory, the authors investigate role overload that is appraised as a challenge or a hindrance stressor by supervisors, leading to pleasant or unpleasant feelings, respectively. The authors propose that, based on their appraisal, these feelings of supervisors act as a mediating mechanism that can facilitate or inhibit their abusive behaviour at work. Additionally, the authors posit emotional intelligence (EI) as a key moderator in helping supervisors manage the negative feelings arising from perceiving role overload as a hindrance and preventing them from demonstrating abusive supervision.

To test the proposed moderated mediation model, the authors collected two-wave data from middle-level supervisors or managers from several organisations located in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia (N = 990).

The results largely support the hypothesised relationships and show that depending on supervisor appraisal, role overload can generate pleasant or unpleasant feelings in supervisors and, consequently, impede or facilitate abusive supervision. They also shed light on the moderating effect of EI, in that supervisors scoring high on EI are better equipped to deal with unpleasant feelings arising from role overload and effectively manage their workplace behaviour, that is, to avoid abusive behaviours.

Role overload can have different impacts on employees: on the one hand, there is a potential for growth, which entails drive and enthusiasm; on the other hand, it could feel like an unsurmountable mountain for employees, leading to different forms of anxiety. Because what we feel is what we project onto others, supervisors experiencing unpleasant feelings cannot be the best leader they can be; even worse, they can become a source of negativity by displaying destructive behaviours such as abusive supervision. The corollary of something as minor as an interaction with a leader experiencing unpleasant feelings could have a ripple effect and lead to adverse outcomes for organisations and their employees. This study explores the different perceptions of role overload and the subsequent feelings coming from those perceptions as supervisor-level predictors of abusive supervision. While it is not possible to objectively put a different lens inside the minds of supervisors when they face stressors at work, to feel pleasant or unpleasant, they can be trained to manage their negative feelings and keep their behaviours in check. Particularly, training managers to be more emotionally intelligent can help them not only achieve growth by overcoming challenges at work but also acknowledge and adapt their feelings to keep their behaviours in the workplace positive. In practical terms, this research can provide organisations with the knowledge required to nip the problem of abusive supervision in the bud, as prevention is always better than cure.

This study aims to explore an interpersonal predictor of coworkers-directed knowledge hiding behavior – the leader–member exchange social comparison (LMXSC). This study integrates leader–member exchange literature with social comparison theory to hypothesize that an individual’s upward LMXSC is positively correlated with coworkers-directed knowledge hiding and that an individual’s feelings of envy are mediated by the relationship between upward LMXSC and coworkers-directed knowledge hiding behavior. Also, this study proposes two-way and three-way interaction patterns of goal interdependence, which can influence LMXSC–envy relationships.

Two independent studies are conducted to test the hypothesized relationships. In Study 1, the authors collected multi-wave data from a large public sector university in China (N = 1,131). The authors then replicated the Study 1 findings by collecting multi-source and multi-wave data from a telecom company based in China (n = 379).

The authors found support across both studies for the idea that upward LMXSC is a possible interpersonal predictor of coworkers-directed knowledge hiding behavior. More specifically, it was found that feelings of envy ensue from upward LMXSC, resulting in further coworkers-directed knowledge hiding behavior. Further, this study shows that the influence of upward LMXSC on knowledge hiding behavior via feelings of envy was weaker (stronger) when employees have high (low) cooperative goal interdependence with coworkers, respectively, and when employees have low (high) competitive goal interdependence with the coworkers, respectively.

This study extends current knowledge management literature by introducing LMXSC as an interpersonal predictor of coworkers-directed knowledge hiding behavior. This will help practitioners to curb such counterproductive behavior.

Based on the theory of crossover, the purpose of this paper is to explore the limited but growing body of research on positive crossover, wherein the authors investigated the direct and indirect crossover of work passion between the dyadic setting of leader and followers. The authors hypothesized that the leader’s (follower’s) work passion influence follower’s (leader’s) work passion through direct crossover phenomena (i.e. crossover via empathy). In the study, the authors also examined the underlying indirect crossover mechanism of leader’s (follower’s) work passion via personal identification – the process by which individuals (supervisors and subordinates) realize cognitive overlap between the self and other over time in a relationship. In an attempt to fully understand the crossover of leader’s (follower’s) work passion, the authors scrutinized the pattern of leader–follower relationship quality, which has the capacity to moderate the direct and indirect crossover of work passion from leader to follower and vice versa.

The authors conducted two independent studies and collected a time-lagged data from the dyadic settings of a large trade multinational company (n=77 supervisor and 373 subordinates) and a large manufacturing multinational company (n=89 supervisor and 411 subordinates) situated in Anhui province of China to test the authors’ moderated mediation model of work passion.

As expected the authors found support for all the authors’ hypothesized relationships. Specifically, the results provide support for the notion of direct and indirect crossover of work passion within leader–follower dyads. Moreover, the authors’ findings also support the moderated mediation model of direct and indirect crossover of work passion.

Overall, this study provides a potential way to stimulate work passion in employees (leader and followers) from the perspective of their relationship quality with each other. Moreover, implications for theory, research and practice with prospective future research topics are discussed.