How Supervisors Behaviour Impact Employee Performance within the Organisation - Literature review Example

Supervision Name: Institution: Literature Review Introduction A popular belief in management hints that organisational teams, furnished with suitable resources as well as empowered by the power for problem solving as required to pursue a comprehended mission, can create efficient patterns with modest supervisory effects (Bono et al., 2007). This perception is applauded as the ‘future organisation’ by supporters who admire its value for businesses, which have to meet market demands that are rapidly changing through information sharing, collaboration, as well as teamwork. Good employees’ supervision is extremely significant for the reason that it reflects on the organisational performance. Besides that, supervision is a major issue in the place of work because it determines the life of the organisation through its workforce (Brief & Weiss, 2002). Supervision is important for managers in monitoring workers’ performance; however, negative supervisor behaviour and abusive supervision can have a negative effect on employee performance. So this literature review seeks to provide a critical analysis of existing literatures with regard to how supervisors behaviour impact employee performance within the organisation. Review of the Literature In spite of prevalent beliefs that supervisors are the main source of bad moods at workplace, Bono et al. (2007) posit that the existing empirical research that documents such effects is very little. Evidently, as noted in Bono et al. (2007) study there is a wide-ranging literature on workplace factors related to worker stress as well as well-being, whereby they believe that supervisors have an effect on emotional experiences of the workers. Theoretically, there are two key reasons why workers could feel heightened anxiety during interactions with their supervisors. Foremost, as mentioned by Bono et al. (2007), supervisors are the persons who analyse employee’s performance directly, and as a consequence supervisory interactions could heighten anxiety concerning performance, which may be evaluated directly during interactions. Subsequently, Thau et al. (2008) offer convincing proof that people always wish for autonomy, and this is limited in the place of work by supervisors. Supervisory interactions permits for closer evaluations of worker behaviour, which could leave workers feeling controlled as well as monitored, resulting in annoyance feelings. In addition, Thau et al. (2008) research point out that expectation of the supervisors can make workers to limit their emotional expressions, and this result in negative effect. Tepper (2000) in their study established that that supervisor can negatively have an effect on employee emotions. In the study, they found four emotional factors pertinent to the relationship between employee and supervisor, three of these emotional factors were negative (specifically, uncertainty, violation, as well as frustration). Workers were interviewed concerning their anger experiences by Shao and Resick (2011), and it was established that inequitable supervisory treatment, which in many organizations is yet to be solved, was the main basis of worker anger. These findings were backed by Tepper (2000), who in their experience sampling study, workers rated 80 percent of their supervisory interactions as positive with just 20 percent rating it as negative; still, the negative interactions effects on worker mood were, generally, five times stronger as compared to the positive interactions effects. Such findings point out that that although the majority of interactions between supervisors and employees are positive, the general net consequence of supervisory interactions could be somewhat negative as a consequence of the stronger negative interactions effects on the worker mood. Karimi et al. (2014) study indicates that supervisors’ abusive behaviours can truly negatively have an effect on worker well-being since they have a tendency to decrease trust in the management. What’s more, Karimi et al. (2014) established that negative behaviours from supervisors associate more strongly with burnout as compared to positive behaviours by supervisors. Therefore, depending on negative supervisory behaviours may destabilize the ultimate supervision goal, which in many organizations is to make certain continuing productivity amongst employees. An associated research stream analysing the impacts of leadership style on workers’ experience of harassment behaviours indicates that most of harassed workers have a greater disagreement with their supervisor as compared to non-harassed workers, leading to higher negative attitudinal and emotional responses as well as more unproductive work behaviours, writes Mitchell and Ambrose (2007). Therefore, both empirical as well as theory research hints that negative supervisory behaviour, regardless of whether it develops to harassment or is just understood as negative supervision, may result in negative behaviours amongst workers (Gilbreath & Karimi, 2012). Burton and Hoobler (2012) study adds an additional result to the list of variables related to supervisory behaviour, and the impact on employee performance. Akin to Gilbreath and Karimi (2012) study, Burton and Hoobler (2012) established that supervisor behaviour is related to the level to which workers participate in job neglect. Even though this has in the past has been hypothesized, it was empirically unexamined. But in their study, Karimi et al. (2014) found that consideration of supervisor was related to job neglect. This assertion is backed by Detert et al. (2007), who found that there was a stronger relationship between negative supervisor behaviour and employee performance as compared to positive supervisor behaviour. Therefore, Burton and Hoobler (2012) argues that negative occurrences in the place of work bring out more behavioural, cognitive, affective, as well as physiological activity as compared to positive or neutral occurrences. Therefore, when compared to positive supervisor behaviour, Boddy (2011) posits that negative behaviour exhibited by supervisor seems to have unevenly authoritative effects. A number of the unevenly authoritative effects could arise from the fact that in lots of supervisor behaviour literature, negative worker results (such as unproductive work behaviours as well as turnover goals,) remains to be the main research focus. Study on the employment demands-resources paradigm by Hu and Hoobler (2013), established that job stressors (negative stimuli) are more related to negative worker outcomes, while job resources (positive stimuli) are more related to positive worker outcomes (such as work commitment and engagement). According to Kuvaas and Dysvik (2010), positive management practice has to be accompanied by workers’ job commitment, satisfaction, and involvement. Positive management is imperative, since it affects the employees’ attitude, and can be achieved through manager commitment, good management behaviour, and participation of workers. However, this argument is countered by Tepper (2007) who argues that most supervisors are abusive, which as a result create serious setbacks for both employees and employers together with their families. Basically, it is rational to presume that outsiders of the organization as well pay a price (based on insurance premiums and high costs for services as well as products) to the degree that abusive supervision results in higher rates of psychological suffering, thievery, disruption, and, perhaps, organizational failure. Abusive behaviour is steered by emotions; therefore, with regard to emotions as well as leadership, Karimi et al. (2014) study results indicate that supervisors and managers have powerful role on employee emotions, which result into abusive supervision. The theory of transformational leadership reveals emotional connection between leaders as well as their followers but provides little justification of how such emotional connections can result in leadership effectiveness (Bowen et al., 2011). More commonly, the literature on abusive supervision complements a storied and rich custom of research as well as theory that has concentrated on recognizing the leadership behaviours that generate preferred results such as high performance and unit morale. However, on the negative aspect there is little that fastens existing work jointly beyond the highlighting on abusive behaviour by the supervisors. To be precise, Gilbreath and Karimi (2012) thought it was fair to typify this stream of research as driven by an observable fact driven than being driven by theory. Evidently, researchers have brought into play theories of persecution, displaced hostility, justice, stress as well as coping among others, to analyse the precursors as well as effects of abusive supervision. However, as observed in Swanberga et al. (2011) study there is little integrated theory that causal to these works. The risk, certainly, is that as abusive supervision literature continues to grow, it may grow to be ungainly and not principally valuable from a practical point of view. Existing literature indicates that abusive supervision is negatively associated with job satisfaction as well as employee commitment at organizational level, and positively associated with quitting intentions. This finding are backed by Gregory et al. (2013) study who noted that abusive supervision generated adverse attitudes, and that irritation experience as well as the fear of future antagonism resulted in poor performance. According to Gilbreath and Karimi (2012), supervisors have a noteworthy influence on workers’ morale as well as their behaviour at work. Researchers since 70s have gained knowledge that supervisors have an effect on workers’ psychological health. In their study, Gilbreath and Karimi (2012) found that supervisors’ support was negatively associated to systolic blood pressure for staff working in high-stress circumstances. Correspondingly, Zhang et al. (2014) established found the blood pressure of workers was higher while working under supervisor who is perceived less favourable. Gilbreath and Karimi (2012) pointed out that support from supervisors has noteworthy effects on workers’ well-being as well as intrinsic job satisfaction. Besides that the level of alleged supervisory/managerial support in the place of work is related to the occurrence of work-family disagreement as well as perceived well-being of workers. Behaviour of supervisors as noted by Gilbreath and Benson (2004)) are predictive to workers’ psychological health. They as well established that supervisors had noteworthy influence on health of workers as compared to their family members, friends, and co-workers. Therefore, it is evident that supervisors are key influence on what workers endure at workplace, and the list of effects related to supervisor behaviour is still growing. For workers who believed their supervisors were supportive, as noted from Gilbreath and Karimi (2012) study recovered quickly from insomnia as compared to workers who perceived their supervisor as unaccommodating. However, Neall and Tuckey (2014) in their study found that abusive supervision was related to family depression, pointing out that ill-treated workers discharge their supervisor-induced hostility to their family. These findings are to some extent less shocking considering that, the supervisor for scores of workers, is the main psychosocial factor in any place of work under supervision. Additionally, supervisors are above all the only available point of leverage from which to change the place of work. According to Burton and Hoobler (2012), supervisors must play a crucial part in developing a healthier place of work for the reason that they can reduce or eliminate the effects of numerous negative factors at the workplace that is molesting workers. Even for supervisors with inadequate power over other stressors in the place of work can as indicated by Tepper (2007) control their individual behaviour. Workplace Application In the contemporary business world, most organizations are trying to steer clear of negative stimuli, but most fail to notice that an abusive supervisor with negative behaviour is certainly the source of negative stimulus in the place of work, writes Thau et al. (2008). Workers can, reasonably, be anticipated to reduce their exposure to negative supervisors’ behaviours. These days most employees apply conservation of resources theory, whereby employees are inspired to reduce the resources expenditure on negative experiences and capitalize on their individual resources expenditure on positive experiences. Given that at workplace there are limited resources, most employees as mentioned by Brief and Weiss (2002) believe their energy and time should be spent on better activities they take pleasure in, and not on supervisors. Therefore, from a resource allocation point of view, contemporary workers are making use of their resources to protect themselves from abuse supervision as well as negative supervisor behaviours instead of spending them to productively perform their work. Similarly, workers who encounter negative supervision could employ job neglect as a means to deal with its effects. For others, as mentioned by Neall and Tuckey (2014) they apply unproductive working behaviours as a mechanism for coping. Besides that, workers who believe their supervisors are generating negative supervision, they withdraw several of their emotional, mental, and physical resources from work. Conclusion In nutshell, it has been argued that effective supervision may result in increased productivity; thus triggering positive behaviour from the management. However, when employees are subjected to abusive supervision, then they react through job neglect as well as unproductive behaviour. Therefore, supervisors in the contemporary business world as suggested in various literatures should endeavour to establish an interpersonal bond with the employees, and steer clear of negative behavioural activities as well as abusive supervision. So as to bring about improved organisational performance, supervisors must take a supportive approach that advances quality by means of fortified relationships, recognition and positive feedback. References Boddy, C. R. (2011). Corporate Psychopaths, Bullying and Unfair Supervision in the Workplace. Journal of Business Ethics, 100(3), 367 - 379 . Bono, J. E., Foldes, H. J., Vinson, G., & Muros, J. P. (2007). Workplace Emotions: The Role of Supervision and Leadership. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(5), 1357 - 1367. Bowen, B., Privitera, M. R., & Bob, V. B. (2011). Reducing workplace violence by creating healthy workplace environments. Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, 3(4), 185 - 198. Brief, A. P., & Weiss, H. M. (2002). Organizational behavior: affect in the workplace. Annual review of psychology, 53(1), 279 - 307 . Burton, J. P., & Hoobler, J. M. (2012). Supervisor workplace stress and abusive supervision: the buffering effect of exercise. 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