When and how does abusive supervision of leaders promote employees′ relations operation

Abusive supervision has attracted the attention of scholars and practitioners due to its extensive existence and significant influence on employees. Although most existing studies believe that abusive supervision is the dark side of leadership and is not conducive to the continuation of benign interaction between leaders and employees, in reality, in the face of widespread abusive supervision, many employees even exhibit positive following behavior, such as relations operation with leaders. In this regard, existing research on the positive influence of abusive supervision proposes that the core mechanism that produces positive organizational behavior is employees′ “ positive psychology toward abusive supervision. ” However, in view of the difficulty of directly generating positive psychology from negative leadership and the universality of the existence of ambivalence in practice, this explanation ignores the production and function of ambivalence. Hence, this provides the opportunity to overcome the current dependence on a single positive psychological path and enhance the interpretation and guidance of research on management practice. In addition, most existing studies focus on the improvement role of employees′ factors in the impact of abusive supervision. How leaders′ variable factors, that is, pertinence and plasticity, can ameliorate the influence of abusive supervision is still worth exploring. Therefore, this study investigates how abusive supervision brings about employee relations operation from the perspective of ambivalence and leaders′ variable factors. Relational identity theory proposes that individuals define themselves based on their relationships with “ important others”. Specifically, based on different evaluations of important others′ interaction behaviors, individuals can form different forms of relational identification. When there is an inconsistent evaluation of the interaction behaviors of important others, the individual will form an ambivalent relational identification, that is, someone wants or does not want to define oneself based on this relationship; the discomfort caused by this ambivalence prompts the individual to take action to ease this. When there are significant positive clues in the interactive environment, the individual will pursue the positive aspect of ambivalence, that is, relational identification, and promote them to adopt relations operation and other behaviors that improve the relationship quality. Based on this, this study posits that in the context of high leader expertise, the relationship between abusive supervision and ambivalent relational identification is more positive; thus, employees can turn to the positive side under the guidance of the positive clues of high leader expertise and produce positive organizational behaviors of relations operation. Using the questionnaire survey method, this study obtained 334 employee-colleague matching data from professional knowledge organizations. Hierarchical regression, bootstrap regression, and conditional indirect effects comparison were performed using SPSS, PROCESS macro, and R. The Johnson-Neyman analysis of the two-stage moderated mediation effect was further carried out using PROCESS grammar. The three hypotheses were tested, and the results indicate the following: 1) Leader expertise moderates the positive relationship between abusive supervision and ambivalent relational identification such that the relationship is stronger when leader expertise is high. 2) Leader expertise moderates the relationship between ambivalent relational identification and relations operation such that the relationship will be positive when leader expertise is high and will not exist when it is low. 3) Leader expertise moderates the indirect relationship between abusive supervision and relations operation through ambivalent relational identification such that the indirect relationship will be positive when leader expertise is high and will not exist when leader expertise is low. This study makes the following theoretical and practical contributions. First, this study finds that ambivalent relational identification mediates the relationship between abusive supervision and relations operation. The logic of “ ambivalence plays a transitional role in the process of negative leadership behavior producing positive organizational behavior results” enriches the research on the mechanism of abusive supervision to promote positive results, and promotes understanding of the complexities of its influence. Second, leader expertise is the boundary condition for the indirect positive relationship between abusive supervision and relations operation. Clarification of the “ inducing” role of leader expertise promotes the understanding of how leaders′ own variable factors can improve the influence of abusive supervision. Third, this study establishes that to alleviate the discomfort associated with ambivalence, employees adopt a relations operation strategy under the condition of high leader expertise. Emphasis on the agency of the abused drives a more egalitarian and balanced perspective on the influence of abuse supervision. Fourth, this study determines the antecedent, boundary condition, and effect of ambivalent relational identification, responding to the research call to consider ambivalence in supervisor-subordinate interactions by focusing on the ambivalent form and relational level identification. In practice, this study suggests that leaders pay attention to the generation and active transformation of employees′ ambivalence and that employees think about and reverse their disadvantages from multiple angles.