The Impact of Abusive Supervision on Employee Quiet Quitting: Examining the Roles of Defensive Silence and Perceived Status

Grounded in conservation of resource (COR) theory, this study explores employees' avoidance-oriented responses to abusive supervision, a relatively under-researched area. Specifically, it investigates how task- and interpersonal-related abusive supervision differentially impact employees' quiet quitting, mediated by defensive silence and driven by resource conservation or acquisition motivations. The study also examines the moderating role of employees’ perceived status in these mediation processes. Time-lagged data from a variety of Chinese industries were analyzed using structural equation modeling and the PROCESS SPSS macro. The results indicate that task-related abusive supervision promotes quiet quitting through increased defensive silence, while interpersonal-related abusive supervision deters quiet quitting by reducing defensive silence. This indirect effect is stronger when employees perceive their status as low. The study contributes to understanding abusive supervision by offering novel insights into the relationship between abusive supervision and quiet quitting, providing directions for future research.