Perception of Abusive Supervision: A Research in the Banking Sector According to Demographic Variables

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to determine whether employees' abusive supervision perception differ according to demographic characteristics in publicly-owned and privately-owned banks. The theoretical framework is based on conservation of resources theory, disengagement theory, and social gender inequality perspective.

Design/methodology/approach – In this study, 317 survey forms were gathered from employees working in publicly-owned and privately-owned banks in Adana using the abusive supervision questionnaire developed by Tepper (2000). In order to examine whether bank employees’ abusive supervision perception differ according to gender, work experience, and ownership form of the employed bank, independent samples t-test was applied. For the analysis to reveal whether there is a difference in abusive supervision perception in terms of age, one-way ANOVA test was performed.

Findings – The results showed that employees' abusive supervision perception do not differ significantly in terms of gender, age, work experience, and ownership form of the employed bank. Additionally, it has been found that employees rarely perceive abusive supervision.

Discussion – Businesses imply policies and perform different sort of activities in order to prevent abusive supervision, which causes huge amount of costs. Based on the findings that employees' abusive supervision perception do not differ significantly in terms of demographic variables and ownership form of the employed bank, policies that prevent abusive supervision are recommended to be inclusive for all employees, independent of demographic variables and ownership form of the employed bank. From this point forth, the findings are expected to guide for practitioners in terms of carrying out activities to control abusive supervision. In order to minimize the causes and possible results of abusive supervision, it should be taken into account that abusive supervision may be associated with organization related antecedents, supervisor related antecedents, and/or subordinate related antecedents. It is recommended that businesses should take the concept of abusive supervision and its possible risks into account in formulating the company norms, recruitment and training of managers, and lastly internal communication processes.