1

Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (2013)

© 2013 The British Psychological Society
www.wileyonlinelibrary.com

The interactive effects of abusive supervision and

entitlement on emotional exhaustion and
co-worker abuse
Anthony R. Wheeler1*, Jonathon R. B. Halbesleben2 and
Marilyn V. Whitman2
1
College of Business Administration, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode
Island, USA
2
Culverhouse College of Commerce, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama,
USA

In this study, we examine the relationship between employee perceptions of supervisor

abuse, emotional exhaustion, psychological entitlement, and subsequent co-worker
abuse. We hypothesize that higher levels of employee psychological entitlement
moderate the abusive supervisor – emotional exhaustion relationship – and this
interaction mediates the abusive supervision – co-worker abuse relationship. Using
multilevel-moderated mediation analysis to analyse day-level survey data from a lagged
panel design across five working days from 132 working adults and their co-workers
across multiple industries, we found support for our hypothesized model. We discuss
implications for theory, future research, and management practice that result from our
study.

Practitioner points
 Psychologically entitled employees who perceive more abusive supervision are more emotionally
exhausted and more likely to abuse their co-workers; therefore, organizations need to identify
patterns indicative of these types of employees.
 Stressed environments likely exacerbate these relationships, and organizations might consider regular
workforce surveys assessing employee emotional exhaustion, which is a trigger for harmful employee
work behaviours.

The dark side of management has gained increasing attention among scholars and
practitioners over the past decade (Aryee, Chen, Sun, & Debrah, 2007; Tepper, 2007).
One construct in particular, abusive supervision, has generated considerable interest as
mounting evidence suggests that such employee perceptions of improper behaviour are
linked to a number of negative consequences (Aryee et al., 2007; Tepper, 2000, 2007;
Zellars, Tepper, & Duffy, 2002). Abusive supervision refers to an employee’s perception of
a supervisor’s persistent hostile non-physical abuse (Tepper, 2000). Tepper, Duffy, Henle,
and Lambert (2006) estimate that abusive supervision directly and indirectly costs
employers $23.8 billion (USD) annually, while the estimated 13.6% of US employees

*Correspondence should be addressed to Anthony R. Wheeler, Schmidt Labor Research Center, College of Business
Administration, University of Rhode Island, 36 Upper College Road, Kingston, RI 02881, USA (e-mail: arwheeler@uri.edu).

DOI:10.1111/joop.12034
2 Anthony R. Wheeler et al.

experiencing abusive supervision often report increased work family conflict and
psychological distress (Tepper, 2000), job strain (Harris, Kacmar, & Boonthanum, 2005),
and adverse health outcomes (Bamberger & Bacharach, 2006; Duffy, Ganster, & Pagon,
2002). Naturally, such dysfunctional behaviour has strong implications for workplace
behaviours and outcomes.
In response to perceiving supervisory abuse, subordinates often engage in harmful
workplace behaviours (Liu, Kwong Kwan, Wu, & Wu, 2010; Mitchell & Ambrose, 2007;
Tepper, Henle, Lambert, Giacaolone, & Duffy, 2008). Given the increasing evidence that
abusive supervision spills over into co-worker interactions (Harris, Harvey, Harris, & Cast,
2013), we examine co-worker abuse as a response to perceived supervisory abuse
(Mitchell & Ambrose, 2007, 2012). Research has shown that an employee’s impaired
ability to self-regulate offers a theoretically plausible explanation for employees’ deviance
responses to abuse (Thau & Mitchell, 2010). That is, in answering the question, ‘Why do
employees who perceive supervisory abuse engage in harmful work behaviours?’,
self-regulation theory suggests that subordinates’ negative responses would occur
because the subordinates become impaired in their ability to self-regulate their
behaviours. While our study is not the first to examine the relationship between abusive
supervision and harmful workplace behaviours, our examination of the influence of
employees’ emotional resource drain on their responses to perceiving supervisory abuse
contributes to our knowledge of the consequences of abusive supervision. The objectives
of the present study are to use self-regulation theory to explicate the resource drain that
results from perceptions of supervisory abuse and examine individual differences that
may further impair an employee’s regulatory capacity. In doing so, we add to our
understanding of why employees will abuse their co-workers in response to perceptions
of abusive supervision.
Our study makes three contributions to the literature. First, given that individual
differences affect the self-regulation process (Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, 1993;
Penney, Hunter, & Perry, 2011; Vohs, Bardone, Joiner, Abramson, & Heatherton, 1999),
we explore how one individual difference in particular, employee psychological
entitlement, affects self-regulation. Psychological entitlement, which for brevity we will
call entitlement for the remainder of the paper, refers to the ‘relatively stable belief that
one should receive desirable treatment with little consideration of actual deservingness’
(Harvey & Martinko, 2009, p. 459). We extend theory by suggesting that entitlement
represents a predisposition to self-regulatory impairment. In addition to examining how
entitlement may influence individual self-regulation, we also investigate how entitled
employees respond to abusive supervision. Research investigating the link between
abusive supervision and employee harmful workplace behaviours has examined
moderators such as employee negative reciprocity beliefs (Mitchell & Ambrose, 2007),
hostile climate (Mawritz, Mayer, Hoobler, Wayne, & Marinova, 2012), leader–member
exchange (Lian, Ferris, & Brown, 2012a), subordinate power distance orientation (Lian,
Ferris, & Brown, 2012b; Wang, Mao, Wu, & Liu, 2012), and supervisor’s organizational
embodiment (Shoss, Eisenberger, Restubog, & Zagenczyk, 2013). Our study, however,
investigates the moderating effects of individuals’ traits on their responses to perceiving
supervisory abuse.
Second, we examine how employee emotional impairment (Baumeister & Vohs,
2003; Gross, 1999; Richards & Gross, 2000), as opposed to cognitive impairment,
impacts employee responses to abusive supervision. This extends the application of
self-regulation theory to explain how perceptions of supervisory abuse can deplete
emotional resources, not just cognitive resources, and how this depletion results in
 Abusive supervision and coworker abuse 3

employees’ self-regulation impairment. Third, Tepper (2007) noted the lack of

research designs in abusive supervision research that include the element of time
(e.g., longitudinal or time-lagged), which limits our understanding of ordering
effects and limits the internal validity of research (Mitchell & James, 2001). We
examine our proposed model (Figure 1) through a lagged panel design spanning five
consecutive workdays to better establish the internal validity of our hypothesized
relationships.

Theory and hypothesis development

Baumeister’s (1998) theory of self-regulation posits that individuals regulate their
behaviour to conform to environmental norms of behaviour. Regulating the self, however,
requires individuals to tap into limited resources needed to meet certain demands
(Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice, 1998). As resources become depleted,
individuals will experience self-regulation impairment resulting in the inability to regulate
one’s behaviour (Baumeister et al., 1998; Vohs et al., 2008). Emerging work suggests that
self-regulation impairment offers a theoretical basis for explaining why perceived
supervisor abuse prompts employees to engage in harmful behaviours (Thau & Mitchell,
2010). The focus on understanding the abuse and determining the consequences
associated with one’s response depletes resources, resulting in self-regulation impairment
(Thau & Mitchell, 2010). Self-regulation theory, however, posits that self-regulatory
dynamics work through both cognitive and affective mechanisms, identifying employee
emotions as a resource at risk in the self-regulation impairment process. Therefore, the
purpose of our study is to build from Thau and Mitchell (2010) to show that self-regulatory
depletion can impact affective mechanisms that prompt interpersonal deviance for
victims of abusive supervision. Specifically, we examine perceptions of abusive
supervision as a self-regulation triggering mechanism. We measure employee emotional
exhaustion as an indicator of the emotional drain created by the self-regulation process
and expect to observe evidence that this drain leads to self-regulatory impairment
prompting co-worker abuse. Furthermore, we examine the influence of an individual
difference, entitlement, on an employee’s response to the emotional threat (Baumeister
et al., 1993; Vohs et al., 1999). In the section below, we develop theory to support the
model illustrated in Figure 1.

Psychological
entitlement
Employee-level trait

Day-level process
+

Perceptions of
Emotional
abusive Co-worker abuse
exhaustion
supervision + +
Figure 1. Hypothesized model.
4 Anthony R. Wheeler et al.

Hypotheses
Abusive supervision triggers strong emotional responses from employees (Tepper,
2000, 2007). Specifically, perceived supervisory abuse drains employees’ self-resources
(Thau & Mitchell, 2010). Researchers note that abusive supervision is psychologically
challenging as employees who perceive abuse divert their focus to understanding and
managing the basis and outcomes of the harm (Aquino & Thau, 2009; Thau, Aquino, &
Wittek, 2007). The depletion of self-resources causes feelings of uncertainty about how
resources will be replenished (Hobfoll, 2001) and impairs employees’ ability to
maintain normative behaviour (Porath & Erez, 2007; Thau & Mitchell, 2010).
Consequently, impairment leaves employees susceptible to impulsiveness or emotional
responses to abuse (Schmeichel & Baumeister, 2004; Thau & Mitchell, 2010).
Furthermore, self-regulation theory stipulates that individuals seek to match their
behaviours to those normative behaviours found in the environment (Baumeister, 1998).
Employees look for clues in the environment that override any self-control inclinations
they might normally have when faced with responding to deviant workplace behaviours
(Mawritz et al., 2012; Restubog, Garcia, Wang, & Cheng, 2010). Thus, when perceiving
abusive supervision, abused subordinates may consider abuse as an acceptable behaviour.
Although research has already established the abusive supervision–co-worker abuse
relationship (Mitchell & Ambrose, 2007), we state a formal hypothesis replicating this
relationship because this relationship will be tested in a larger model.
Hypothesis 1: Employee perceptions of supervisor abuse positively relate to employees
engaging in co-worker abuse.
We have theoretical reasons to expect that emotional exhaustion will mediate the
relationship specified in Hypothesis 1. Emotional exhaustion is defined as ‘a chronic state
of physical and emotional depletion that results from excessive job demands and
continuous hassles’ (Wright & Cropanzano, 1998, p. 486). Research on abusive
supervision finds those perceiving abuse also report higher levels of emotional exhaustion
(Grandey, Kern, & Frone, 2007). Self-regulation theory posits that individuals have a
limited pool of cognitive and energy resources that are necessary for self-regulation
(Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996; Baumeister et al., 1998). Regulating one’s emotions in
particular consumes a great deal of cognitive resources (Forgas & Vargas, 1999). The
experience of abuse is psychologically challenging and elicits strong emotional reactions
from employees (Tepper, 2007; Thau & Mitchell, 2010). Employees who perceive abuse
will expend resources to process what they are experiencing (Thau & Mitchell, 2010).
The focus on interpreting and understanding the abuse drains self-resources (Thau &
Mitchell, 2010). Therefore, we would expect employees perceiving abusive supervision
to report higher levels of emotional exhaustion as previous research has suggested that
resource depletion results in emotional exhaustion (Diestel & Schmidt, 2012; Grandey
et al., 2007).
Employees who experience a drain in self-resources and subsequently emotional
exhaustion suffer from an impaired ability to maintain impulses and emotions (Schmei-
chel & Baumeister, 2004). The resources expended on processing the abuse leave
employees without the necessary resources to regulate their responses, including their
emotional responses. The inability to consider normative behavioural expectations, as
well as the consequences that may arise from violating these expectations, results in
employees engaging in interpersonal deviant behaviour, specifically co-worker abuse.
While the abusive supervision – emotional exhaustion relationship is established in the
abusive supervision research (Aryee, Sun, Chen, & Debrah, 2008; Harvey, Stoner,
 Abusive supervision and coworker abuse 5

Hochwarter, & Kacmar, 2007; Whitman, Halbesleben, & Holmes, 2013) – we formally
state this hypothesis as it is part of a larger model and because we have used a different
theoretical lens to explicate it.
Hypothesis 2: Emotional exhaustion mediates the relationship between supervisor
abuse and co-worker abuse.
We believe the mediated relationship specified in Hypothesis 2 is affected by the
employee predisposition of entitlement, specifically that perceptions of abusive
supervision interact with employee entitlement to predict the mediator of emotional
exhaustion. We expect high levels of abusive supervision and high levels of entitlement to
interact to predict higher levels of employee emotional exhaustion. We have already
hypothesized above that higher levels of abusive supervision will predict higher levels of
emotional exhaustion, and we hypothesize a similar outcome related to entitlement.
Entitled employees possess expectations about what resources they will receive or are
entitled to regardless of their effort or performance. Entitled employees tend to willfully
ignore disconfirming information relative to which resources they feel entitled (Snow,
Kern, & Curlette, 2001). As disconfirming evidence mounts, entitled employees
experience expectation violations (Naumann, Minsky, & Sturman, 2002), which shatters
their generally over-positive view of themselves (Snow et al., 2001). As a result,
entitlement has been empirically linked to negative equity perceptions (King & Miles,
1994), poor job satisfaction (Naumann et al., 2002), increased turnover intentions
(Harvey & Martinko, 2009), hostile deviant behaviour (Levine, 2005), political behaviour,
and co-worker abuse (Harvey & Harris, 2010).
Personal conditions and attributes can affect how individuals engage in the
self-regulation process (Baumeister & Alquist, 2009). A workplace environment in which
supervisory abuse is perceived provides a unique context through which to understand
how entitlement affects self-regulation. In order to link entitlement to self-regulatory
dynamics, we turn to Morf and Rhodewalt’s (2001) dynamic self-regulatory processing
model of narcissism. The researchers reconceptualize narcissism as a self-regulatory
processing system, suggesting that a narcissist’s self-concept ‘is shaped by the dynamic
interaction of cognitive and affective intrapersonal processes and interpersonal self-reg-
ulatory strategies that are played out in the social arena’ (p. 177). Although these
researchers do not examine entitlement, they explain that narcissistic individuals ‘display
a sense of entitlement and the expectation of special treatment’ (p. 177). As entitlement is
a component of narcissism (Campbell, Bonacci, Shelton, Exline, & Bushman, 2004), we
apply the self-regulatory processing model to explain why entitled employees who
perceive supervisory abuse would experience greater exhaustion.
Morf and Rhodewalt’s (2001) model assumes that cognitive, affective, and social
self-regulation processes serve to satisfy motivated self-construction intended to develop
or maintain desired selves and suit self-evaluative needs. This self-construction effort
mostly occurs in the social arena. Entitled individuals have a weak self-concept and are in
need of constant self-affirmation, so the self-regulation process is geared towards
achieving that goal. However, self-construction attempts generally fail due to entitled
individuals’ insensitivity to social constraints and others’ feelings. As a result, entitled
individuals are able to maintain self-esteem and affect in the short term but adversely
influence their interpersonal relationships and paradoxically weaken the self that they are
trying to construct in the long run. This suggests entitled employees’ motivation and focus
on building and maintaining self-evaluative needs become particularly sensitive to threats
against their self-concept (i.e., abusive supervision).
6 Anthony R. Wheeler et al.

Additionally, self-regulation requires employees to match their behaviours to that of

the norms of the work environment and to delay gratification. Entitled employees fail to
properly analyse their environments, often misattributing causes and effects of negative
outcomes and misperceiving their own abilities of achieving success (Harvey & Martinko,
2009). Moreover, entitled employees often demand immediate rewards for their
perceived performance, even if their performance does not merit rewards (Harvey &
Harris, 2010; Harvey & Martinko, 2009). This suggests that entitled employees might
possess a predisposition to impaired self-regulation. They have difficulty properly
assessing environments and demand immediate gratification, both of which suggests that
entitled employees require more effortful processing when experiencing discrepant
information about their own abilities.
Further, there is an emotional component to this processing. Entitled employees often
become angry when their expectations about the rewards to which they feel entitled are
violated (Campbell et al., 2004). Harvey and Martinko (2009) theorized that entitled
employees feel estranged from those who do not agree with them over the rewards to
which they feel entitled. Often these entitled employees feel negative emotions towards
organizations that they feel do not adequately support them. This pattern of behaviours
and emotional responses suggests that entitled employees have a predisposition towards
becoming emotionally drained compared with those who have lower senses of
entitlement.
Recall that employees who experience a drain in self-resources and subsequently
emotional exhaustion suffer from an impaired ability to maintain impulses and emotions
(Diestel & Schmidt, 2012). Coupled with insensitivity towards social constraints and
others’ feelings, we suspect that emotionally exhausted and entitled employees are
prone to act out towards their co-workers. Entitled employees tend to blame others
when they do not get the treatment or rewards to which they feel entitled (Lang, 1985).
Entitled employees also lack empathy towards others, often acting callously to others in
close proximity within their social setting (Campbell et al., 2004). Moreover, self-reg-
ulation requires employees to match their behaviours to the normative environment;
thus, employees perceiving more abuse likely views acting in abusive ways towards
others as normal. Combining the theoretical arguments of the previous hypotheses, we
should expect to observe interactive effects between high abusive supervision and
entitlement to predict higher levels of emotional exhaustion. Abusive supervision
requires employees to self-regulate their emotional responses to perceiving abusive
supervision. Likewise, entitled employees are also prone to emotional exhaustion, as
their work environment likely presents many opportunities to violate the expectations
they have about receiving rewards or outcomes to which they think they are entitled
regardless of their actual performance. Further, as the interactive effects of resource
depletion that occurs from regulating emotions from abusive supervision and given the
predisposition to exhaustion, we theorize that this emotional exhaustion, reflective of
emotional self-regulation impairment, results in employees targeting their co-workers for
abuse.
Hypothesis 3: The indirect effect of abusive supervision to co-worker abuse through
emotional exhaustion will vary based on entitlement. Specifically,
employee entitlement interacts with employee perceptions of abusive
supervision such that an employee with higher levels of entitlement and
higher levels of abusive supervision experiences higher levels of
emotional exhaustion.
 Abusive supervision and coworker abuse 7

Method
Participants and procedure
The sample included 132 employees working across a wide variety of industries in the
United States. There were 47 men and 83 women in the sample (2 participants did not
indicate a gender). The average age was 39.63 years (SD = 11.92). They had worked at
their current job for an average of 9.15 years (SD = 8.79) and worked an average of 41.69
(SD = 10.18) hours per week.
We used 37 MBA students to recruit study participants in what is referred to as a
student-recruited sampling procedure (Wheeler, Shanine, Leon, & Whitman, 2013; see
Fox, Spector, Goh, Bruursema, & Kessler, 2012 for an example in the study of deviant
behaviour). We asked the MBA students to recruit up to five adult, full-time employees
who would be willing to complete a series of surveys over a standard U.S. workweek. The
MBA students provided us with names and contact information of the employee they
recruited; the MBA students could not act as participants and did not have access to any
survey instruments we used in the study. All told, the MBA students provided contact
information for 153 employees; 132 participated for a response rate of 86%. The MBA
students were offered extra credit for their assistance and were explained the research
process and results after the data collection was completed. To ensure that the
participants (and not the MBA students) completed the surveys, we randomly selected
50% of the participants to contact to confirm their participation; all participants contacted
verified that they had completed the surveys. The MBA students were aware of this
verification process prior to commencing data collection.
The participants completed an online survey with measures of supervisor abuse,
exhaustion, co-worker abuse, and entitlement each day for five working days (Monday to
Friday). This led to a total of 575 observations across participants and times. Each
participant responded on an average of 4.36 days (range = 4–5). The link for each survey
was sent in mid-afternoon each day (between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m. local time); 87% of the
responses occurred between 3:00 and 6:00 p.m. each day. This suggests that the vast
majority of the responses occurred at the end of the workday. A few of the responses did
not come in until the next day. Responses that were received after the start of the typical
workday (08:00 a.m. local time) were excluded from the analysis.
We analysed the missing responses for any systematic effects (e.g., certain days of the
week more likely to be missed or participants with more than one missing day) and
found none. Using logistic regression, we also tested whether higher levels of
exhaustion or abusive supervision at Time 1 predicted if the participants responded
to the survey on later days (Goodman & Blum, 1996). We found that those two variables
were not significantly associated with the likelihood of responding on any of the
subsequent days (results available from the authors and were provided to the editor and
reviewers). Thus, the missing data were treated as missing completely at random, and
pairwise deletion was used for instances where relationships could not be tested due to
missing data.

Measures
Abusive supervision
We assessed abusive supervision using the 11-item scale of Harris, Kacmar, and Zivnuska
(2007), which was a shortened version of the Tepper’s (2000) abusive supervision scale.
A sample item is ‘My supervisor ridicules me’. Given the day-level design, we rephrased
8 Anthony R. Wheeler et al.

the items to be more appropriate for this type of setting (e.g., ‘Today, my supervisor
ridiculed me’). This was measured on a 7-point Likert-type scale from 1 (strongly
disagree) to 7 (strongly agree); higher scores indicate higher abuse. The average alpha for
this measure across the 5 days was .86.

Exhaustion
Emotional exhaustion was assessed using the exhaustion subscale of the Oldenburg
Burnout Inventory (OLBI; Demerouti, Bakker, Vardakou, & Kantas, 2003; see Halbesleben
& Demerouti, 2005 for construct validity and reliability data for the English version of the
OLBI). It is an 8-item measure; a sample item is ‘I can stand the pressure of my work very
well’. Again, we rephrased the items to be more appropriate for this type of setting (e.g.,
‘Today I could stand the pressure of my work very well’). Items were scored on a 5-point
Likert-type scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree); higher scores indicate
higher exhaustion. The average alpha for this measure was .90.

Co-worker abuse
We also asked each participant to distribute a Web link to one of their co-workers, who
would assess the extent to which they thought the participant engaged in direct
co-worker abuse. We measured co-worker abuse by adapting the abusive supervision
scale described above; they completed the same scale with the items rephrased to apply to
their co-worker (e.g., ‘Today, I was ridiculed by my coworker’). The instructions indicated
that they should think about the co-worker that sent them the link to the study. This was
also measured on a 7-point Likert-type scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly
agree); higher scores indicate higher abuse. The average alpha for this measure was .88.
We adapted this measure instead of using another co-worker abuse measure due to the
design of our study. We did this because we were interested in how the abusive
behaviours of the supervisor would transfer to the co-worker. Thus, using the same scale
that measured the same behaviours was a better approach than using a different scale.

Entitlement
Following other recent research in workplace entitlement (Harvey & Harris, 2010), we
used the 9-item entitlement measure of Campbell et al. (2004). A sample item is ‘I feel
entitled to more of everything’. It was scored on a 5-point Likert-type scale from 1
(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree); higher scores indicate higher entitlement. While
entitlement has typically been considered a trait (Harvey & Martinko, 2009), we measured
it each of the 5 days. After finding that it was very highly consistent across the 5 days
(within-person correlation of .96), we took the mean of the entitlement score for the
5 days and treated it as a person-level variable in the analysis. The average alpha for this
measure was .89.

Control variables
We considered several control variables in the analysis that have been identified in the
literature (Tepper, 2000, 2007). First, we included tenure with the supervisor, because
the length of that relationship could impact the level of abusive supervision. Second, we
considered overall tenure with the organization, because those who had been working at
 Abusive supervision and coworker abuse 9

the organization could feel more entitled and also are less likely to experience exhaustion.
Finally, we included whether the number of hours participants worked played a role,
because those employees who work longer hours may have higher exhaustion and more
opportunities to both experience abuse and engage in abuse. However, none of these
control variables substantively impacted the results of the study (in terms of the fit of the
models or the values of the parameter estimates).

Data analysis strategy

To test the day-level effects of abusive supervision on exhaustion and subsequent
co-worker abuse, as well as the moderating effect of entitlement, we utilized multilevel
path modelling of moderated mediation models (Bauer, Preacher, & Gil, 2006), similar to
the approach in other day-level papers (Ferris, Spence, Brown, & Heller, 2012) as well as
moderated mediation tests all at a single level (Edwards & Lambert, 2007). We assumed
two levels of analysis. Level 1 refers to the day-level measurements, including abusive
supervision, exhaustion, and co-worker abuse. Level 2 refers to the person-level variable
of entitlement. To account for time in our models, we took a lagged-approach. We
modelled our predictor from day k, mediator from day k + 1, and outcome from day
k + 2.

Results
The means, standard deviations, and within- and between-person correlations are
presented in Table 1. Prior to testing the hypotheses, we examined a number of potential
issues with the data. First, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on the
day-level constructs (abusive supervision, exhaustion, and co-worker abuse) from each
day to examine whether they were distinct from each other. A three-factor CFA fit the data
at acceptable levels, particularly when compared with a one-factor model and a two-factor
model that collapsed abusive supervision and co-worker reports of abuse from the
participant (see Table 2).
Next, we examined whether the day-level constructs varied both within and between
people. We examined a null model where we partitioned the total variance into between-
and within-participant variance. For co-worker abuse, 32% of the total variance was
within individuals; the between-individual variance (68%) was significant (p < .01).
Table 1. Study means, standard deviations, and correlations

Between- Within-
individual individual

Variable Mean SD SD 1 2 3 4

1. Abusive supervision 1.20 0.44 0.21 .08* .00 .80**

2. Exhaustion 3.63 0.67 0.32 .08 .44** .13*
3. Entitlement 3.73 0.71 0.51 .05 .13** .06
4. Co-worker abuse 2.11 0.83 0.25 .64** .19** .15**

Note. N = 132. Between-individual correlations (below the diagonal) were calculated between
individuals, using each participant’s mean scores for the day-level variables. Within-individual correlations
are reported above the diagonal.
*p < .05; **p < .01.
10 Anthony R. Wheeler et al.

Table 2. SEM Fit statistics for measurement models of the day-level variables in the model

Model description v2 df CFI NFI TLI RMSEA Model comparisons Dv2 Ddf

Day 1
Three-factor 565.23 380 .95 .94 .94 .061
model
Two-factor 586.69 386 .94 .92 .93 .063 vs. three-factor 21.46* 6
model model
One-factor 1852.14 387 .76 .74 .75 .17 vs. three-factor 1286.91** 7
model model
Day 2
Three-factor 530.58 380 .96 .96 .95 .055
model
Two-factor 562.02 386 .95 .95 .94 .059 vs. three-factor 31.44* 6
model model
One-factor 893.97 387 .85 .82 .83 .10 vs. three-factor 363.39** 7
model model
Day 3
Three-factor 553.28 380 .95 .94 .94 .059
model
Two-factor 574.16 386 .94 .93 .94 .061 vs. three-factor 20.88* 6
model model
One-factor 1117.04 387 .82 .82 .81 .12 vs. three-factor 565.76** 7
model model
Day 4
Three-factor 494.69 380 .97 .96 .96 .048
model
Two-factor 544.57 386 .95 .94 .94 .056 vs. three-factor 49.88* 6
model model
One-factor 1527.68 387 .77 .76 .76 .15 vs. three-factor 1032.99** 7
model model
Day 5
Three-factor 603.46 380 .94 .93 .93 .067
model
Two-factor 662.90 386 .90 .89 .90 .074 vs. three-factor 59.44* 6
model model
One-factor 2217.16 387 .71 .68 .69 .19 vs. three-factor 1613.70** 7
model model

Note. *p < .05; **p < .01.

For exhaustion, 25% of the total variance was within individuals; the between-individual
variance (75%) was significant (p < .01). Finally, we found that the within-individual
variability over time was larger than the error variance derived from coefficient alpha,
suggesting that the within-individual variance in both exhaustion and co-worker abuse
were meaningful rather than random (Ilies, Scott, & Judge, 2006).

Intra-individual findings
We present the findings from the multilevel models in Table 3. Testing of moderated
mediation models is built from a mediated model. Therefore, we first tested a mediation
 Abusive supervision and coworker abuse 11

Table 3. Multilevel estimates for models predicting co-worker-rated co-worker abuse behaviours

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Estimate SE Estimate SE Estimate SE

Abusive supervision ? Exhaustion 0.48** 0.029 0.45** 0.029 0.44** 0.030

Abusive supervision ? Co-worker abuse 0.23** 0.032 0.21** 0.034 0.21** 0.033
Exhaustion ? Co-worker abuse 0.13* 0.010 0.19** 0.014 0.18** 0.011
Abusive supervision 9 Entitlement ? 0.16* 0.019 0.14* 0.021
Exhaustion
Exhaustion 9 Entitlement ? Co-worker 0.06 0.009
abuse
R2exhaustion .24 .24 .24
R2co worker abuse .32 .38 .39
R2generalized .48 .53 .54

Note. N = 132.
*p < .05; **p < .01.

model that included paths from abusive supervision to exhaustion, abusive supervision to
co-worker abuse, and exhaustion to co-worker abuse (Model 1 in Table 3). Then, we
tested a model that added the first-stage moderation effect of entitlement (Model 2 in
Table 3). This was our hypothesized model. Finally, to rule out the possibility of
second-stage moderation effects (entitlement interacting with exhaustion to predict
co-worker abuse), we added that second-stage interaction in Model 3. For each model, we
computed the generalized R2 to see whether including the interaction effects added value
to the model (Tepper et al., 2008). As indicated in Table 3, our predicted model (Model 2)
had a significantly higher generalized R2 than did the mediated model. However, adding
the effect of the second-stage moderation did not significantly add to the R2 value.
In the light of the finding that our predicted first-stage moderated mediation model was
the best fit to the data, we examined the relationships in that model. We found that abusive
supervision significantly associated with higher co-worker abuse 2 days later (c = .21,
p < .01), supporting Hypothesis 1. Moreover, we found that abusive supervision
significantly associated with next-day exhaustion (c = .45, p < .01) and exhaustion
significantly associated with next-day co-worker abuse (c = .19, p < .01). Finally, the
interaction between abusive supervision and entitlement was significant (c = .16,
p < .05).
In Figure 2, we display the cross-level moderating effect of entitlement on the
relationship between abusive supervision and exhaustion following procedures outlined
by Aiken and West (1991). For purposes of the figure, we dichotomized exhaustion and
entitlement based on one standard deviation above and below the mean for exhaustion
and entitlement, respectively. As predicted, the plotted interaction suggests a pattern
where those high in entitlement and high in abusive supervision are the most likely to
experience exhaustion and those low in abusive supervision and low in entitlement are
less likely to experience exhaustion.
Following recommendations in the literature (Bauer et al., 2006; Edwards & Lambert,
2007), we took the step of establishing moderated mediation through additional tests (see
Table 4). We first examined the indirect effect of abusive supervision on co-worker abuse
through exhaustion, finding a significant indirect effect (.09, p < .05). We followed that
with tests of the indirect effect at different levels of entitlement (1 SD). These tests
12 Anthony R. Wheeler et al.

5
Low entitlement
4.5
High entitlement

Emotional exhaustion
4

3.5

2.5

1.5

1
Low abusive supervision High abusive supervision

Figure 2. Interaction between exhaustion and entitlement as a predictor of same-day co-worker-rated

co-worker abuse.

Table 4. Conditional indirect effects of abusive supervision to co-worker abuse through emotional
exhaustion across levels (1 SD) of entitlement

95% Confidence interval

Estimate SE Lower limit Upper limit

+1 SD 0.48** 0.013 0.20 0.76

Mean 0.09* 0.010 0.02 0.16
1 SD 0.06 0.011 0.01 0.13

Note. N = 132.
*p < .05; **p < .01.

suggested a significant indirect effect at high levels of entitlement (.48, p < .01) but not at
low levels of entitlement (z = 06, n.s.). Taken together, the results converge towards our
conclusion that the indirect relationship between abusive supervision and co-worker
abuse (through exhaustion) is moderated by one’s entitlement such that those high in
entitlement abuse are more emotionally impaired than those with lower entitlement,
which leads to differences in how those employees treat their co-workers.

Discussion
The present study explored the effects of abusive supervision and employee entitlement
on emotional exhaustion and subsequent co-worker abuse. We found that the interaction
between higher levels of perceived supervisor abuse and employee entitlement predicted
increased emotional exhaustion. In turn, elevated levels of emotional exhaustion
predicted higher levels of co-worker abuse. Examining the influence that emotional
impairment has on employee responses to abusive supervision through the self-regulation
lens allows us to explain how the depletion of emotional resources influences employees’
self-regulation. Additionally, although previous studies had investigated the impact that
entitlement has on co-worker abuse, job-related frustration (Harvey & Harris, 2010),
supervisor conflict (Harvey & Martinko, 2009), and abusive supervision (Whitman,
 Abusive supervision and coworker abuse 13

Halbesleben, & Shanine, 2013), its moderating influence on the relationship between
employees’ perceptions of supervisory abuse and emotional exhaustion had not
previously been examined. Our findings suggest that entitlement represents a predispo-
sition to self-regulatory impairment. Psychologically entitled employees who perceive
supervisory abuse experience greater emotional exhaustion and are more likely to engage
in abusive behaviour towards their co-workers.
The current study utilized a research design and set of analyses that incorporates the
element of time in our hypothesized relationships. After all, self-regulation theory explains
employees’ behaviours ‘over periods of days, weeks, and years’ (Baumeister & Vohs, 2003,
p. 197). Our supported hypothesized model demonstrates that the effects we hypoth-
esized can spill over from day to day. The combination of co-worker-rated abuse and our
day-level, time-lagged design help us to rule out threats to internal validity related to
common method variance and cross-sectional research designs, respectively. These are
important issues that researchers have repeatedly sought to address in research related to
abusive supervision (Tepper, 2007).
The growing body of literature on abusive supervision provides compelling and
assenting evidence that such dysfunctional leader behaviour has negative consequences
that are costly to organizations (Sutton, 2007; Tepper et al., 2006). Thus, we know that
abusive supervision is detrimental. While our study provides further support for the
prevailing view of abuse, our findings also offer new insights in terms of our understanding
of the processes linking abusive supervision and its outcomes. Our findings suggest that
perceptions of supervisory abuse may disproportionately affect entitled employees,
resulting in higher levels of emotional exhaustion. Because entitled employees’
motivation and focus on building and maintaining self-evaluative needs is sensitive to
threats against their self-concept, experiencing disconfirming information that compro-
mises their positive self-view (as supervisory abuse would) results in greater impairment
(Campbell et al., 2004).
The design of our study also assists us in interpreting our results in the context of
our theoretical arguments. Over a 5-day period, employees reported perceptions of
supervisor abuse, emotional exhaustion, and co-worker abuse. Self-regulation theory
posits that abuse depletes resources; yet depletion cannot go on indefinitely. At some
point, the employee has to mitigate the resource loss and the impairment, which
Baumeister and Alquist (2009) identified as an area of future research and
development for self-regulation theory. The abuse perceived by employees in our
sample occurred daily, and their emotional exhaustion varied daily. Thus, how did
these employees replenish the resources that were depleted through self-regulation
but needed to meet the daily demands of their work? Our results show a pattern of
perceiving abuse, followed by decreases in emotional exhaustion, and leading to
co-worker abuse. Self-regulation theory applied to abusive supervision explains these
ordering of effects as an unconscious or impaired response. We suggest that this daily
pattern occurs because the response to the supervisory abuse becomes automated.
That is, abusing co-workers could become a normative behaviour, which lessens
impairment.

Managerial implications
Our study has implications for organizations and managers. Most pertinent to our study is
the finding that co-worker abuse spills over from abusive supervision and potentially from
co-worker to co-worker (Ramsay, Troth, & Branch, 2011). While a debate exists as to
14 Anthony R. Wheeler et al.

whether or not co-worker-to-co-worker abusive behaviour results from displacing anger at

the supervisor to the safer target of the subordinate (Barling, Dupre, & Kelloway, 2009),
our findings combined with Harris et al. (2013) suggests that the supervisor–co-worker
abuse relationship stems not from anger displacement, but from a resource depletion
process. For this reason, we believe it is imperative for organizations to develop processes
to detect abuse and eliminate such dysfunctional behaviour from occurring. Organiza-
tions might encourage a zero-tolerance policy on abuse or develop mentoring
programmes to help coach abusers in finding ways to curb aggressive behaviours
(Keashly & Neuman, 2008; Wheeler, Halbesleben, & Shanine, 2010). Regardless of the
approach an organization takes, they must send a clear and strong message to their
workforce that abusive behaviour is not acceptable.
Additionally, organizations might benefit from assisting employees in minimizing the
exhausting effects of supervisory abuse. Organizations may consider developing
programmes intended to strengthen self-resources by training members to deal effectively
with abusive situations (Baumeister, Gailliot, DeWall, & Oaten, 2006) and providing
additional assistance through the use of counsellors. Teaching members to better cope
with abusive situations may reduce destructive retaliatory behaviours.
As with abusive supervision, mounting evidence also suggests that entitlement results
in unfavourable workplace outcomes (Harvey & Harris, 2010; Harvey & Martinko, 2009).
This evidence, coupled with the findings of this study, suggests that entitlement can
potentially threaten the well-being of co-workers if left unchecked. Organizations may
consider screening potential employees during the selection process (Harvey & Martinko,
2009), as well as training recruiters and interviewers on how to identify behaviours
indicative of entitlement. As entitlement is a stable personality trait, organizations may
find it easier to identify candidates that are high on entitlement initially and remove them
from the applicant pool than to try to manage entitled employees (Fisk, 2010; Harvey &
Martinko, 2009). Organizations also may rely on probationary employment periods that
may help identify entitlement characteristics and behaviours missed during the selection
process.
As the study of psychological entitlement in the workplace is still in its nascent stage,
we turn to the narcissism literature to identify additional workplace interventions that
may be applicable to managing entitled employees. Organizations may find that increasing
an entitled employee’s sense of connection may mitigate the harmful behaviour
(Campbell, Hoffman, Campbell, & Marchisio, 2011). Obviously, successfully addressing
the perceptions of supervisory abuse would be necessary before engaging in efforts to
strengthen feelings of connection. Organizations also may find it advantageous to find a
specific setting and/or role within the organization where entitled employees can excel
(Campbell et al., 2011). As entitled employees are able to self-regulate in the short term, as
previously discussed, placing these individuals in roles that require brief interactions with
others (e.g., public performance) may be mutually beneficial for both the organization and
the employee (Campbell et al., 2011).

Limitations and directions for future research

While we believe our findings have important implications for theory and practice, we
acknowledge limitations to our studies. We note that our study does not directly examine
emotion-regulation (or a lack thereof) nor controls for cognitive impairment, but instead
captures the end-result dynamics that would theoretically be associated with emo-
tion-regulation impairment: emotional exhaustion. Thus, we urge future research to
 Abusive supervision and coworker abuse 15

explore the different types of emotions that are invoked by abusive supervision that
prompt emotional exhaustion as well as the ability of employees to manage their emotions
in response to supervisor behaviours (Little, Kluemper, Nelson, & Gooty, 2012). The
possibility exists that co-workers might not reciprocate abuse towards their abusive
co-workers; instead, abused co-workers might empathize with their co-workers (Porath &
Erez, 2009). Future research might examine ongoing co-worker-to-co-worker interactions
amidst an environment where abusive supervision occurs.
Some of our findings are based on self-report data. Burke, Brief, and George (1993) note
that in cases where one is looking at intra-individual change over time, self-report data may
be quite useful and less problematic. Indeed, the time separation of the data collections
and our use of co-worker ratings of abuse limits the influence of common method bias
explaining our findings; however, we cannot rule out the possibility of common method
bias. While we utilized the modified snowball sample approach in order to increase the
variability in abusive supervision responses, another way to address the single-source data
issue would be to collect abusive supervision measures from multiple employees working
with a supervisor (e.g., dyads, triads).
We also adapted the abusive supervision scale to measure co-worker abuse. We did
so to maintain the context of the abuse and to make easier the experiences of those
taking our survey measures. Given that we asked participants and their co-workers to
complete surveys over a 5-day period, we felt that they would feel more comfortable
responding to the items in the manner in which we presented them. Although our
results demonstrated discriminant validity between the supervisor- and the co-w-
orker-rated measure of co-worker abuse provides us with additional evidence of
construct validity of the co-worker abuse measure, we urge researchers to use other
established scales to measure co-worker abuse and potentially multiple types of
measures that can provide different types of information on co-worker abuse (cf.
Nielsen, Matthiesen, & Einarsen, 2010).
Furthermore, we asked participants to divulge sensitive information. Being asked to
respond to questions about their supervisors’ and co-workers’ abusive behaviours may
have raised social desirability concerns that ultimately influenced their responses. It is
plausible that participants did not respond truthfully to the questions asked or skewed
their ratings. In addition, it is important to note that the relationships examined in this
study may have been influenced by additional cognitive and contextual variables that
were not included in our model.
For example, we did not measure co-worker-to-co-worker reciprocity, which might
give researchers a better idea of whether abusive co-workers are translating the supervisor
abuse into negative equity perceptions between themselves and other co-workers.
Hobfoll (2001, 2011) theorizes that repeated resource loss could form a reinforcing cycle
of loss, where loss begets more loss. If co-workers are experiencing supervisor abuse and
co-worker abuse, the co-workers could form reinforcing loss cycles that lead to even
worse well-being and performance outcomes. The supervisor abuse could create an
environment where co-workers dependently spiral into greater levels of resource loss.
Future research should investigate the occurrence of these loss cycles.

Conclusion
In conclusion, understanding contextual factors of abusive supervision gives researchers
and practitioners important insights into the antecedents, moderators, and outcomes of
the construct. Knowing that entitled employees are more susceptible to emotional
16 Anthony R. Wheeler et al.

self-regulation impairment when also experiencing abusive supervision are more likely to
act out towards co-workers in an abusive manner suggests that these employees can make
a toxic environment more toxic. The outcomes of such an environment can seldom be
good, which is why we need more understanding of the constructs studied in our
research.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their help in shaping this
manuscript. We would also like to thank Regina George and Katrina DeVoort for their
help.

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Received 5 April 2012; revised version received 30 July 2013