Are you morally included? The mediating effect of subordinates' task performance and organizational citizenship behavior between political skill and abusive supervision

Purpose This study aims to investigate whether and how subordinates' political skill influences abusive supervision via task performance and organization-directed organizational citizenship behavior (OCB-O). Design/methodology/approach A 3-wave survey of 224 employees was conducted at a Chinese transportation firm and the hypotheses were tested with multi-level Bayesian structural equation modeling in Mplus. Findings The findings reveal that individual political skill is not directly associated with abusive supervision but indirectly relates to abusive supervision through increased OCB-O. The mediating effect of task performance is not significant. Originality/value This study examined the direct relationship between political skill and abusive supervision, and using moral exclusion theory, explored the unique underlying mechanisms involved, i.e. through the performance outcomes of task performance and OCB-O. While subordinates' performance is typically considered as an outcome of abusive supervision, this study positions it as a key mediator linking political skill to abusive supervision.