Little research attention has been devoted to employees' implicit leadership theories as an antecedent of abusive supervision perceptions. Specifically, we suggest that the prototypic dimensions are positively related to abusive supervision perceptions, contrary to the antiprototypic dimensions. Additionally, we suggest that implicit followership theories act as a moderator in the relationship between abusive supervision and deviant behaviors, since beliefs about followers' personal attributes and characteristics affect the way subordinates behave. Thus, we propose that prototypic followers are less prone to retaliate directly against abusive supervisors, however, they retaliate indirectly through turnover intentions.
Participants were 367 supervisor-subordinate dyads from different organizational settings. Bootstrapping results indicate that the prototypic dimensions are significantly related to abusive supervision perceptions and that abusive supervision is significantly related to deviant behaviors when prototypical or positive second order IFTs factor was low (t=3.15; p<.05), but not when it was high (t=-.52; p>.05). Contrary, abusive supervision is significantly related to turnover intentions when prototypical or positive second order IFTs factor was high (t=4.22; p<.05), but not when it was low (t=-.34; p>.05).
Research results indicate that employees' prior expectations and cognitive prototypes influence not only abusive supervision perceptions, but also abusive supervision outcomes. Specifically, the current study provides support for Lord and Maher's (1993) suggestions that employees use implicit leadership theories as an uncertainty reduction mechanism and compare their actual supervisor with their implicit profile to evaluate his/her behavior (Epitropaki & Martin, 2005). This research makes several contributions for theory and practice. Firstly, it expands the content domain of abusive supervision research and highlights the relevance of employees' schema to abusive supervision perceptions and consequences. Secondly, it is useful for managers to know that abusive supervision may affect employees differentially, depending on employees' prior expectations and schema.