Dr. Sharon Sheridan presented at the Academy of Management Conference in Boston

Dr. Sharon Sheridan presented her research “How does abusive supervision hurt employee performance? Let’s count the ways: A meta-analysis” at The Academy of Management Conference in August 2019 in Boston, Massachusetts.

Authors on the paper included Shannon G. Taylor, Marcus Butts, Sharon Sheridan, and Regina Michelle Taylor.

Paper Abstract:

Although a significant body of research has established a relationship between abusive supervision and employee performance (i.e., task performance, OCB, CWB), there has been a lack of consensus regarding how abusive supervision impacts performance outcomes. Individual studies testing mediating mechanisms in isolation are informative, but this piecemeal approach leaves unclear the relative explanatory power of the various theoretical perspectives used to explain the performance-related consequences of abusive supervision. To address this limitation and provide theoretical clarity, the current study uses meta-analytic latent variable structural equation modeling to examine the relative influence of multiple mediators of the relationships between abusive supervision and performance outcomes. We compiled 310 effect sizes from 184 independent samples and examined the mediating relationships by indicators of fairness, social exchange quality, state negative affect, and resource depletion. The strength of the mediating influences differed across performance outcomes, suggesting the mechanisms and corresponding theoretical perspectives are differentially important for various performance behaviors. Implications and future directions for the study of abusive supervision are discussed.