Abusive supervision, psychological capital and deviant work behaviors: case of workers of Brookside Limited

Abstract

The study aimed at investigating the relationship between abusive supervision, psychological capital and deviant work behaviors among staff of Brookside limited Uganda. A stratified sampling method was used on sample size of 100 respondents both male and female arrived at by using Krejcie and Morgan’s table (Krejcie & Morgan, 1970). Person product moment correlation coefficient was used to test hypotheses that focused on, examining the relationship between abusive supervision and deviant work behaviors, examining the relationship between abusive supervision and psychological capital, examining the relationship between psychological capital and deviant work behaviors and to examine whether psychological capital moderates the relationship between abusive supervision and deviant workplace behaviors while regression analysis was used to test moderation. The results of the study showed that abusive supervision has a positive significant relationship with deviant work behavior, results also showed that abusive supervision had a negative significant relationship with psychological capital. The study results also showed that psychological capital and deviant work behaviors had a negative significant relationship. The study also showed that psychological capital moderates the relationship between abusive supervision and deviant work behavior. A conclusion was made that staff involvement in organization or individual deviant work behaviors is as a result of abusive supervision and low levels of psychological capital. Employers should increase the psychological capital of staff and reduce abusive supervision in the organization in order to eliminate deviant work behaviors.