Abusive supervision and emotional exhaustion: the moderating role of power distance orientation and the mediating role of interaction avoidance

While abusive supervision is shown to have stress‐related effects on abused subordinates, relatively little is known about the factors capable of mitigating these negative effects and their longer term consequences. Drawing on the 1984 transactional model of stress and coping of Lazarus and Folkman, we predicted that subordinates’ power distance orientation moderates the positive relationship between abusive supervision and subordinates’ interaction avoidance, such that this relationship is attenuated as power distance orientation increases. Because the transactional model suggests that interaction avoidance can increase strain when unresolved stressors accumulate over time, we also predicted that subordinates’ interaction avoidance coping mediates the positive relationship between abusive supervision and subordinates’ emotional exhaustion. To examine these hypotheses, we collected data from 600 employees at three points in time over a 12‐month time period in Japan. The findings supported the predicted moderated and mediated relations, and the overall moderated mediation model.