Linking Abusive Supervision to Promotive and Prohibitive Voice Behavior: Testing the Mediating Roles of Work Engagement and Negative Reciprocity

Abstract

As an important type of extra-role behavior, employee voice behavior is of great significance to the sustainable development of organizations. Employee voice behavior has two different dimensions, namely promotive voice and prohibitive voice, both of which are conducive to decision making, innovation, and improvements to the work process. Among the antecedents of voice behavior, abusive supervision is one of the most essential influencing factors. In response to the call to further explore the antecedents and influencing mechanisms of different dimensions of voice behaviors, this study aims to investigate the different paths of abusive supervision on the two types of voice behavior. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory and social exchange theory, we identified an expanded array of mediators, including work engagement and negative reciprocity, which link abusive supervision to promotive voice behavior and prohibitive voice behavior separately. Data were collected through two-wave questionnaire surveys of 334 employees of 14 enterprises in China. The results show that (a) abusive supervision is negatively correlated with employees’ promotive and prohibitive voice behaviors; (b) work engagement mediates the negative relationship between abusive supervision and promotive voice; and negative reciprocity mediates the negative relationship between abusive supervision and prohibitive voice. These findings clearly reveal the influencing mechanisms of abusive supervision on both promotive and prohibitive voice behavior, which not only enriches relevant theoretical research but also provides feasible insights into how to reduce abusive supervision to motivate voice behavior in management practice.