Abusive supervision, employee well-being and ill-being:
the moderating role of core self-evaluations
O'Donoghue, Ashley, Conway, Edel and Bosak, JanineORCID: 0000-0001-5701-6538
(2016)
Abusive supervision, employee well-being and ill-being:
the moderating role of core self-evaluations.
In:
Emotions and Organizational Governance.
Research on Emotion in Organizations, 12
.
Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Bingley, UK, pp. 3-34.
ISBN 978-1-78560-998-5
Purpose - This chapter investigates the relationship between abusive supervision and
employee well-being (i.e. job satisfaction, engagement) and ill-being (i.e. burnout,
workaholism) and examines whether follower core self-evaluations (CSE) moderate this
relationship.
Design/ methodology/ approach - The study uses cross-sectional survey data collected from
111 professional employees across a range of industry sectors.
Findings - Results show that abusive supervision is negatively related to employee wellbeing (i.e. engagement and job satisfaction) and positively related to employee ill-being,
namely burnout. In addition, employees low in CSE are less engaged and less satisfied than
employees high in CSE.
Research limitations/ implications - The study’s cross-sectional design limits the strength
of its conclusions.
Practical implications – The chapter notes the ethical and legal obligations of organisations
to provide a safe working environment and identifies the policies and procedures that will
signal a commitment to employee well-being.
Originality/ value - The study contributes to the leadership and well-being literatures by
exploring the influence of abusive leaders on follower well-being and engagement. It also
goes beyond merely identifying correlations between leadership style and follower well-being
outcomes to investigate how leader and follower attributes can combine to influence these
outcomes