Abusive supervision and the entitled employee

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Abusive supervision and the entitled employee
The Leadership Quarterly

We present two studies that examine the effects of psychological entitlement on employees' ratings of abusive supervision and their behavioral reactions to these perceptions. Study 1 indicated that entitlement was positively associated with ratings of abusive supervision. Perceived abuse was in turn associated with upward undermining behaviors and organizational deviance. In Study 2 we re-examined the hypothesized relationships using paired data from employees and their coworkers. The results replicated those from the first study and showed that entitled employees rated supervisors asmore abusive than coworkerswho shared the same supervisors. Although this variance is likely driven by a combination of perceptual distortion and actual abusive behaviors the ultimate implication is that psychologically entitled employees are prone to feel that they are victims of abuse and to react in undesirable ways.

Citation: 
The Leadership Quarterly 25 (2014) 204 – 217

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