Mirror, mirror on my boss’s wall: Engaged enactment’s moderating role on the relationship between perceived narcissistic supervision and work outcomes

Addressing both practical and scholarly considerations, we investigated the interactive effects of perceived supervisor narcissism and individual enactment behavior on four relevant self-report work outcomes (i.e. frustration, tension, resource availability, and job performance). We hypothesized that employees with limited enactment behavior would be adversely affected in high supervisor narcissism settings. Conversely, we expected that perceived narcissistic supervision would have little effect on those with active enactment strategies. Across three samples, hypotheses were strongly supported as work frustration (Studies 1 and 3) and tension increased (Studies 1 and 2), and resource availability (Studies 1–3) and job performance (Studies 1–3) decreased for low enactment behavior–high perceived supervisor narcissism employees. Conversely, perceived supervisor narcissism had no significant effect for high enactment employees on any outcome across samples. These findings, when viewed in their entirety, confirmed the influential role of enactment behavior on perceived supervisor narcissism–work outcome relationships.