Does abusive supervision increase employees’ helping behavior? Exploring mediating and moderating mechanisms

Abstract Background: Typically, researchers believe that abusive supervision decreases employees' helping behavior. However, according to the emotional process theory of abusive supervision, subordinates show more helping behavior under certain conditions. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of abusive supervision on employees' helping behavior, with a focus on the mediating role of self-blame and guilt, as well as the moderating effects of core self-evaluation (CSE) and power distance. Methods: In this study, the PROCESS Macro model was used to investigate the proposed moderated mediation model completely. Confirmatory factor analysis was tested with AMOS. Employees of diverse private and state service-offering organizations in Yazd, Iran, were invited to participate in the study (n=381) using simple random sampling. To gather the data, the abusive supervision scale (Mitchell however, the significant mediation by self-blame and guilt was negative. Moreover, more (less) core self-evaluation intensified (attenuated) the relationship between abusive supervision and self-blame. More (less) power distance decreased (increased) the association between self-blame and guilt. Conclusion: First, this study enriches the literature on abusive supervision and its aftermath by introducing self-blame and guilt as two mediators that can influence subordinates’ reactions to abusive supervision. Second, unprecedentedly, CSE was tested as a moderator between abusive supervision and self-blame. Third, in response to the previous call for research (Mackey et al., 2017; Tepper, 2007), the moderation of subordinates’ power distance orientation on the relationship between self-blame and guilt was investigated.