TY - JOUR
T1 - Abusive supervision
T2 - A content analysis of theory and methodology
AU - Zhang, Yucheng
AU - Hou, Zhongwei
AU - Zhou, Xingxing
AU - Yue, Yumeng
AU - Liu, Siqi
AU - Jiang, Xiao Xiao
AU - Li, Ling
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 71972065 and 71602163), Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of Guangdong Province (2020KJ256) and Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences (201940).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.
PY - 2021/9/10
Y1 - 2021/9/10
N2 - Purpose: Despite recent organizational behavior studies have witnessed considerable progress in abusive supervision research; some demerits for both theory and methodology still remain in the past years. To clarify the current state of knowledge in the field, this study aims to analyze the current state of theories and methods on abusive supervision and provides a detailed future research agenda. Design/methodology/approach: This paper conducted a literature review for both theory and methodology of the abusive supervision research using a content analysis of 134 publications. Findings: For the theory part, this paper summarized the theories that had been applied to explain the relationship between abusive supervision and its consequences as well as antecedents. For the methodology part, this paper outlined some critical issues regarding country of origin, research design, measurement, analysis strategy and also summarized with a discussion of the relationship between methodological issues and article impact. Finally, this paper concluded by presenting an agenda for future abusive supervision research regarding both theory and methodology. Originality/value: First, this paper summarizes the main theories, antecedents and consequences often used in abusive supervision research to allow scholars to carry out theoretically driven research investigating abusive supervision in the future. Second, through a content analysis of the methods sections of abusive supervision research in the samples (i.e. country of origin, research design, measurement and analytical procedures), this paper identified the potential reasons underlying the inconsistency in the conclusions of abusive supervision research and provide some guidance for future empirical studies. Third, based on the qualitative review, this paper provides an agenda for future research investigating abusive supervision by developing a content-specific theoretical framework to benchmark abusive supervision research against other research related to leadership and offers an accurate response to scholars’ criticisms of abusive supervision research.
AB - Purpose: Despite recent organizational behavior studies have witnessed considerable progress in abusive supervision research; some demerits for both theory and methodology still remain in the past years. To clarify the current state of knowledge in the field, this study aims to analyze the current state of theories and methods on abusive supervision and provides a detailed future research agenda. Design/methodology/approach: This paper conducted a literature review for both theory and methodology of the abusive supervision research using a content analysis of 134 publications. Findings: For the theory part, this paper summarized the theories that had been applied to explain the relationship between abusive supervision and its consequences as well as antecedents. For the methodology part, this paper outlined some critical issues regarding country of origin, research design, measurement, analysis strategy and also summarized with a discussion of the relationship between methodological issues and article impact. Finally, this paper concluded by presenting an agenda for future abusive supervision research regarding both theory and methodology. Originality/value: First, this paper summarizes the main theories, antecedents and consequences often used in abusive supervision research to allow scholars to carry out theoretically driven research investigating abusive supervision in the future. Second, through a content analysis of the methods sections of abusive supervision research in the samples (i.e. country of origin, research design, measurement and analytical procedures), this paper identified the potential reasons underlying the inconsistency in the conclusions of abusive supervision research and provide some guidance for future empirical studies. Third, based on the qualitative review, this paper provides an agenda for future research investigating abusive supervision by developing a content-specific theoretical framework to benchmark abusive supervision research against other research related to leadership and offers an accurate response to scholars’ criticisms of abusive supervision research.
KW - abusive supervision
KW - content analysis
KW - knowledge transfer
KW - review of methodology
KW - review of theory
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85114478102&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1108/CMS-01-2021-0017
DO - 10.1108/CMS-01-2021-0017
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85114478102
SN - 1750-614X
JO - Chinese Management Studies
JF - Chinese Management Studies
ER -