Abusive Supervision and Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior: The Mediating Role of Status Challenge and the Moderating Role of Leader–Member Exchange

Abstract

Unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) refers to unethical behavior that employees engage in to benefit their organization. Although UPB has received great attention from management scholars, little research has tested the influence of negative and destructive behavior from supervisors, such as abusive supervision, on UPB. Using conservation of resources theory, this study examines when and how abusive supervision affects UPB. Data were obtained from Chinese enterprises, and 368 time-tagged questionnaires were analyzed to test the moderated mediation model. Results revealed that abusive supervision positively influences UPB and that status challenge mediated this relation. Furthermore, the indirect effect of status challenge was moderated by leader–member exchange (LMX). Specifically, this effect was stronger when LMX was high. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings, and propose future research directions.