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The “evil pleasure”: Abusive supervision and third-party observers’ malicious reactions toward victims

Xu, E.; Huang, X.; Jia, R.; Xu, J.; Liu, W.; Graham, L.N.; Snape, E.

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Authors

E. Xu

X. Huang

R. Jia

J. Xu

W. Liu

E. Snape



Abstract

We investigated how abusive supervision influences interactions between third-party observers and abused victims and hypothesized when and why third parties react maliciously toward victims of abusive supervision. Drawing on the theory of rivalry, we predicted that third-party observers would experience an “evil pleasure” (schadenfreude) when they perceive a high level of rivalry with the victims of abusive supervision and that the experienced schadenfreude then would motivate third parties to engage in interpersonal destructive behaviors (i.e., undermining, incivility, and interpersonal deviance) toward the victims. We further proposed that such malicious reactions would be attenuated if groups have a high level of cooperative goals. Results based on one experimental study and two time-lagged field studies lend support to our propositions.

Citation

Xu, E., Huang, X., Jia, R., Xu, J., Liu, W., Graham, L., & Snape, E. (2020). The “evil pleasure”: Abusive supervision and third-party observers’ malicious reactions toward victims. Organization Science, 31(5), 1053-1312. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2019.1349

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Oct 26, 2019
Online Publication Date Mar 4, 2020
Publication Date 2020-09
Deposit Date Nov 9, 2019
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Organization Science
Print ISSN 1047-7039
Electronic ISSN 1526-5455
Publisher Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 31
Issue 5
Pages 1053-1312
DOI https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2019.1349
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1283924

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