Follower proactive behavior reducing supervisory abuse: the role of leader future orientation and follower in-role performance

Vollständiger Abstract

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Introduction Despite growing interest in leaders’ responses to employee proactivity, it remains largely unanswered whether and when subordinate proactive behavior mitigates supervisory abuse. Methods We propose a model grounded in the logic of moral exclusion, in which subordinate proactive behavior reduces supervisory abuse, magnified by the supervisor’s future orientation and the subordinate’s in-role performance. We test the proposed model through a multi-source field study (Study 1, involving 191 employees and 86 supervisors in an import and export company) and a 2 × 2 vignette experiment (Study 2, with 243 employee participants from various industries). Results Our findings reveal a main effect in which subordinate proactive behavior indeed reduces supervisory abuse. Additionally, we observe a three-way moderating effect, in which the enhancement of a supervisor’s future orientation on the negative association between subordinate proactive behavior and abusive supervision becomes more pronounced for subordinates with high in-role performance. Discussion These findings further our existing understanding of coping strategies for supervisory abuse and managerial responses to employee proactive behavior.