Abusive supervision and team effectiveness: The mediating role of team efficacy

Abusive supervision is increasingly received research attention in the Western academy of management. Existing studies of abusive supervision are all conducted at the individual level to investigate its influence on employee psychological, attitudinal, and behavioral outcomes. Up to now there are no studies examining abusive supervision´s effects on team level outcomes. Based upon data collected from 81 team leaders and 247 team members working in four subsidiaries of a giant manufacturing company, the study investigates the abusive supervision-team effectiveness linkage. Enlightened by the Heuristic model of team effectiveness, we further examine the mediating role of team efficacy in the linkage. Hierarchical Regression Modeling results show that abusive supervision has a negative effect on team effectiveness, which is fully mediated by team efficacy.