Abusive Supervision and Employee Silence: Moderation of Face Consciousness and Mediation of Job Stress

Many companies expect employees to provide effective guidance to adapt to the rapidly changing business environment and make timely decisions. However, employees often remain silent about organizational problems. The way supervisors lead their subordinates as representatives of the organization can affect employees' psychological perception and behavioral judgment. Therefore, this study attempted to shed light on the impact and mechanism of abusive supervision on employee silence. According to affective events theory, individuals affected by the work environment or work events experience emotional fluctuations, which are combined with personal characteristics for research purposes. For the empirical analysis of this study, an individual analysis was conducted targeting 240 workers from various industries and occupations in South Korea and China. The results of the hypothesis tests showed a significant positive relationship between abusive supervision and employee job stress. The results also showed significant moderating effects of face consciousness on the relationship between abusive supervision and job stress. Specifically, individuals with low face consciousness experienced more job stress when exposed to abusive supervision. Also, a significant positive relationship was found between job stress and acquiescent/defensive silence. Furthermore, we found a significant mediating effect of job stress on the relationship between abusive supervision and acquiescent/defensive silence. This study holds theoretical significance by highlighting the role of face consciousness in employees’ stress reactions to abusive supervision. It also offers practical implications by suggesting management strategies for supervisors to reduce abusive supervision and tailor interventions based on individual employee traits.