Abusive supervision, public service motivation, and employee deviance. The moderating role of employment sector
| Published date | 05 December 2016 |
| Date | 05 December 2016 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EBHRM-08-2015-0034 |
| Pages | 214-231 |
| Author | Rick Vogel,Fabian Homberg,Alena Gericke |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Global HRM |
Abusive supervision, public
service motivation, and
employee deviance
The moderating role of employment sector
Rick Vogel
Department of Socioeconomics,
University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
Fabian Homberg
Department of Human Resources and Organizational Behaviour,
Bournemouth University, Bournemouth, UK, and
Alena Gericke
Department of Political Science, Binghamton University,
Binghamton, New York, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to examine abusive supervision and public service motivation
(PSM) as antecedents of deviant workplace behaviours.
Design/methodology/approach –The study wasconducted in a cross-sectionalresearch design with
survey data from 150 employees in the public, private, andnon-profit sector in Germany and the USA.
Findings –Abusive supervision is positively associated with employee deviance, whereas PSM is
negatively related to deviant behaviours. The employment sector moderates the negative relationship
between PSM and employee deviance such that this relationship is stronger in the public and
non-profit sector.
Research limitations/implications –Limitations arise from the convenience sampling approach
and the cross-sectional nature of the data set.
Practical implications –Human resource managers should consider behavioural integrity in the
attraction, selection, and training of both supervisors and subordinates. Private organisations can
address the needs of strongly public service motivated employees by integrating associated goals and
values into organisational missions and policies.
Originality/value –This is the first study to introduce PSM into research on employee deviance. It
shows that a pro-social motivation can drive anti-social behaviours when employees with high levels of
PSM are members of profit-seeking organisations.
Keywords Public service motivation, Person-organization fit, Destructive leadership,
Counterproductive work behaviour, Dark side of leadership
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Workplace deviance has detrimental effects on organisational performance, which
makes it worth studying for scholars of organisational behaviour and human resource
management (Aquino et al., 1999; Robinson and Bennett, 1995). Deviant workplace
behaviour purposefully violates organisational norms and is intended to harm an
organisation, its members, or both (Spector and Fox, 2005). A number of disparate acts
fall into this category, such as theft, destruction of property, misuse of information,
time and resources, unsafe behaviour, poor attendance and work quality, use of drugs
and alcohol, and inappropriate verbal and physical actions (Gruys and Sackett, 2003).
Evidence-based HRM: a Global
Forum for Empirical Scholarship
Vol. 4 No. 3, 2016
pp. 214-231
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
2049-3983
DOI 10.1108/EBHRM-08-2015-0034
Received 7 August 2015
Revised 12 December 2015
Accepted 13 December 2015
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2049-3983.htm
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EBHRM
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It is clear from these examples that human resource managers have a vital interest to
hinder employees from displaying such behaviours because they run counter to the
goals and interests of the organisation (Sackett and DeVore, 2002).
While the negative consequences of employeedeviance for the individual, group, and
organisation arewell-established in the literature, less is known aboutthe antecedents of
these behaviours.A better understanding of these determinantspermits organisations to
prevent or to reduce undesired behaviours at the workplace. In particular, interpersonal
factors, such as supervisory relationships, and individual characteristics beyond
personalitytraits, such as motivationaldispositions, have hithertoreceived little attention
as determinants of employee deviance. We narrow this gap by studying the impact of
two importantfactors. First, we examine the downwardlink between deviant behaviours
on the part of supervisors and subordinates. Our focus is on abusivesupervision (Tepper,
2000) as determinant of employee deviance. With this focus, we contribute to an
emerging stream of literature on the implications of supervisory misbehaviour for
counterproductive behaviours at the workplace (Martinko et al.,2013). Second, this is the
first study to introduce public service motivation (PSM) (Perry and Wise, 1990) into
research on employee deviance. We argue that PSM defined as “an individual’s
predisposition to respond to motives grounded primarily or uniquely in public
institutions and organizations”(Perry and Wise, 1990, p. 368), protects individuals
and organisations from deviant behaviours and thus may counterbalance the negative
effects of abusive supervision. This is due to PSM being a specific type of
pro-social motivation which facilitates behaviour that is beneficial for the organisation
or society. This relationship is evidenced by studies showing the positive association of
PSM with affectivecommitment to change (Wright et al.,2013),volunteering(Perryet al.,
2008), collaborative behaviour (Getha-Taylor and Haddock-Bigwarfe, 2014), and
organisational citizenship behaviour (Bottomley et al., 2016).
While PSM originates in the public administration literature, it was never a sector-
specific conceptand always emphasised the individualpredisposition to act in the public
interest (Perry and Wise, 1990; Perry, 1996). Thus, it is a universal concept related to
individualsin all sectors of employment (i.e. public, private, and non-profit). For example,
Andersen et al. (2011) found no differencesbetween general PSM levels amongpublic and
private physiotherapists in Denmark. PSM’s universal nature is further particularly
evident in job choice and sector attraction studies using student samples (see e.g.
Pedersen,2013) as these subjects are not yet affiliatedwith any sector of employment and
the hypotheses that PSM leads to public sector preference is not always supported.
Nonetheless, Perry et al. (2010) argue that PSM is still more dominant in the public
sphere due to the particular missions, institutions, and values governing the public
sector work environment. As a consequence, the sector of employment may affect how
PSM is related to employee deviance. Our study provides evidence for this moderating
effect. As predicted, we find that PSM is negatively related to employee deviance both
in the public and non-profit sector, whereas this association is positive in the private
sector. Theories of person-organisation (P-O) fit suggest that membership in a public or
non-profit organisation is instrumental in addressing the needs and values of
employees with high levels of PSM, which reduces behaviour directed against the
organisation and its members. On the contrary, members of private organisations show
more engagement in deviant behaviours, the stronger they are public service motivated
because they experience lower levels of need satisfaction and value congruence. This
finding has important implications for the attraction and selection of personnel in
different sectors of employment.
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