In pursuit of power: The role of authoritarian leadership in the relationship between supervisors’ Machiavellianism and subordinates’ perceptions of abusive supervisory behavior Kohyar Kiazad a, * ,1 , Simon Lloyd D. Restubog b, ** ,1 , Thomas J. Zagenczyk c , Christian Kiewitz d , Robert L. Tang e a Department of Management and Marketing, The University of Melbourne, Australia b Research School of Business and School of Management, Marketing and International Business, The Australian National University, Australia c Department of Management, Clemson University, USA d Department of Management and Marketing, University of Dayton, USA e School of Management and Information Technology, De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, Philippines article info Article history: Available online 17 June 2010 Keywords: Aggression Abusive behavior Authoritarianism Interpersonal behavior Hostile treatment Machiavellianism personality Organization-based self-esteem abstract In this paper, we considered both supervisor (personality and leadership behavior) and victim character- istics (organization-based self-esteem) in predicting perceptions of abusive supervision. We tested our model in two studies consisting of supervisor–subordinate dyads from Australia and the Philippines. Spe- cifically, we found that: (1) supervisor Machiavellianism was positively associated with subordinate per- ceptions of abusive supervision; (2) subordinate perceptions of authoritarian leadership behavior fully mediated the relationship between supervisor Machiavellianism and abusive supervision, and (3) orga- nization-based self-esteem (OBSE) moderated the relationship between authoritarian leadership and abusive supervision, such that low-OBSE employees were more likely to perceive higher levels of authoritarian leadership as abusive. Implications for research and practice are discussed. Ó 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Over the last decade, a growing body of literature has shown that abusive supervision – referred to as the sustained display of non-physical hostility from supervisors against their subordinates (Tepper, 2000) – has a deleterious impact on both the attitudes (e.g., psychological distress, job dissatisfaction, work-family con- flict) and behaviors (e.g., job performance, workplace deviance) of its victims (Tepper, 2000, 2007). Despite evidence pertaining to its negative consequences, we know little about its antecedents (Tepper, 2007). Moreover, with few exceptions (e.g., Aryee, Chen, Sun, & Debrah, 2007; Hoobler & Brass, 2006), studies have predom- inantly adopted a displaced-aggression perspective, suggesting that abusive supervisory treatment reflects hostility directed against convenient targets when retaliation against the original source of frustration is not possible. Although these studies found support for this perspective, Tepper (2007) has cautioned against a sole focus on displaced aggression instead encouraging research that links personality traits with abusive supervisory behaviors, gi- ven the partly dispositional basis of leader attitudes and behaviors (Judge, Piccolo, & Kosalka, 2009). To address Tepper’s (2007) call for research on dispositional fac- tors underlying abusive supervision dynamics, we draw on Motowidlo, Borman, and Schmit’s (1997) theory of individual dif- ferences in task and contextual performance and the General Aggression Model (GAM; Anderson & Bushman, 2002) to develop and test an integrative framework that models the impact of both supervisor (Machiavellianism; Mach) and subordinate (organiza- tion-based self-esteem; OBSE) dispositional characteristics on sub- ordinates’ perceptions of abusive supervision. Specifically, we posit that the relationship between supervisors’ Machiavellianism and abusive supervision is mediated by authoritarian leadership behavior and that the link between authoritarian leadership and abusive supervision is moderated by subordinates’ organization- based self-esteem. Notably, our work extends Tepper’s (2007) the- oretical model that incorporates supervisor’s characteristics only as an antecedent to abusive supervision. 2. Theoretical framework In order to model the processes through which Machiavellianism affects abusive supervision, we employ Motowildo and colleagues’ 0092-6566/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2010.06.004 * Corresponding author. ** Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: kiazadk@unimelb.edu.au (K. Kiazad), simon.restubog@anu. edu.au (S.L.D. Restubog). 1 The first and second authors contributed equally in writing the manuscript. Journal of Research in Personality 44 (2010) 512–519 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Research in Personality journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jrp