Does change incite abusive supervision? The role of transformational change and hindrance stress

Stijn Decoster, Leander De Schutter, Jochen Menges, David De Cremer, Jeroen Stouten

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

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Abstract

To remain competitive, organizations tend to change their established ways of working, their strategy, the core values, and the organizational structure. Such thorough changes are referred to as transformational change. Unfortunately, transformational change is often unsuccessful because organizational members do not always welcome the change. Although organizations often expect their supervisors to be successful role-models and change-agents during the transformational change process, we argue that initiating transformational change could increase supervisors' hindrance stress levels, which may result in abusive behaviors towards employees. More specifically, in a multi-source survey and an experimental study, we find evidence that transformational change is associated with supervisors' experienced hindrance stress, which subsequently led to more abusive behaviors towards employees.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)957-976
Number of pages10
JournalHuman Resource Management Journal
Volume33
Issue number4
Early online date24 Jan 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2023

Bibliographical note

Special Issue: Refugee recruitment and workplace integration: An opportunity for human resource management scholarship and impact.

Funding Information: Grant Number from grant obtained at Zayed University: R19075. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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