Abusive Supervision and Employee Deviance: A Multifoci Justice Perspective

In order to address the influence of unethical leader behaviors in the form of abusive supervision on subordinates’ retaliatory responses, we meta-analytically examined the impact of abusive supervision on subordinate deviance, inclusive of the role of justice and power distance. Specifically, we investigated the mediating role of supervisory- and organizationally focused justice and the moderating role of power distance as one model explaining why and when abusive supervision is related to subordinate deviance toward supervisors and organizations. With 79 independent sample studies (N = 22,021), we found that abusive supervision was more strongly related to supervisory-focused justice, compared to organizationally focused justice perceptions, and both types of justice perceptions were related to target-similar deviance (deviance toward the supervisor and organization, respectively). Finally, our results showed that the negative implications of abusive supervision were stronger in lower power distance cultures compared to higher power distance cultures.