Abusive Supervision and Turnover Intentions: A Mediation-Moderation Perspective

This study intended to provide and test a unique model describing how abusive supervision increases workers’ turnover intentions, with a mediating role of emotional exhaustion and moderating role of self-esteem. We argued that emotional exhaustion exacerbates the association between abusive supervision and turnover intentions of the workers, while self-esteem buffers this relationship, based on the unfolding model of voluntary turnover as an overarching theory. The study design reflected that abusive supervision and turnover intentions are mediated by emotional exhaustion, while the relationship between abusive supervision and emotional exhaustion is further moderated by self-esteem. A well-structured and self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from 290 respondents. The data were analyzed, and hypotheses were tested using PLS-SEM. The study findings confirmed that there exists a positive and significant link between abusive supervision and turnover intentions through the indirect effect of emotional exhaustion. On the other hand, the findings regarding moderating effect indicates that self-esteem has a significant impact among abusive supervision and emotional exhaustion. This research identified a feasible way for supervisors to grasp how diverse the responses of various workers may be using the unfolding model. These research findings have important academic and practical implications for government representatives, policymakers, and entrepreneurial educational institutes that can use these findings.