Chinese Management Studies

Abusive supervision and LMX: Leaders' emotional intelligence as antecedent variable

and trust as consequence variable
Ding Xiaqi Tian Kun Yang Chongsen Gong Sufang

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Ding Xiaqi Tian Kun Yang Chongsen Gong Sufang, (2012),"Abusive supervision and LMX", Chinese
Management Studies, Vol. 6 Iss 2 pp. 257 - 270
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Brian T. Gregory, Talai Osmonbekov, Sean T. Gregory, M. David Albritton, Jon C. Carr, (2013),"Abusive
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Mary C. Kernan, Sharon Watson, Fang Fang Chen, Tai Gyu Kim, (2011),"How cultural values affect the
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Linda C. Isenhour, Dianna L. Stone, Donald Lien, Long-Zeng Wu, Ho Kwong Kwan, Jun Liu, Christian J.
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Abusive supervision and LMX

Leaders emotional intelligence as antecedent
variable and trust as consequence variable
Ding Xiaqi, Tian Kun, Yang Chongsen and Gong Sufang

Abusive
supervision
and LMX
257

College of Management, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China

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Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how leaders emotional intelligence (EI) influences
subordinates trust and to examine the roles played in the process by abusive supervision (a negative
leadership) and leader-member exchange (LMX) (a positive leadership).
Design/methodology/approach According to revelations in the case of Foxconns jumping
events and LMX theory, this paper argues that low levels of leaders EI affect their subordinates
perception of abusive supervision and tends to cause their mistrust of employers in return, further
damaging the employer-employee relationship. Tension will develop or be intensified among such
relationships as time evolves and relationship length extends. A superior-subordinate matching
questionnaire survey was conducted among enterprises in Shenzhen, China. About 202 valid samples
were eventually collected. The data were analyzed through correlation analysis, regression analysis,
CFA, EFA and SEM using SPSS and LISREL.
Findings The EI of superiors has a significant positive impact on the personal trust between
subordinates and superiors, in which both abusive supervision and LMX play a partial mediating role;
and the relationship length of superiors and subordinates plays a moderating role between LMX and
affective trust.
Practical implications The paper advises that when selecting leaders, more emphasis should be
placed on EI, and managers should be trained to improve their emotional skills.
Originality/value The paper extends the research on the antecedent and consequence variables of
abusive supervision in Chinese enterprises, discussing both positive and negative leadership.
Keywords China, Leadership, Management skills, Employees behaviour, Trust, Interpersonal skills,
Abusive supervision, Leader-member exchange, Emotional intelligence, Relationship length
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
As owners of power in organizations, leaders have great influence both on staff and
organizations. For a long time, researchers have paid much attention to positive
leadership such as transformational leadership, charismatic leadership and concerned
on improving leadership effectiveness. However, both leaders and leadership have
their dark sides. According to Kellerman (2004):
[. . .] there has long been a partiality to the positive aspects in traditional study on leaders and
leadership, while this partiality can trick us into perceiving the essence of leadership. Only
with study from various aspects can we get an all-around insight of this field. One way to
increase the probability of good leadership is to encourage as many people as possible to
study, teach and practice it. But another way is to encourage the exploration into bad
leadership.

Bad leadership is as ubiquitous as it is insidious in organizations and it must be more

carefully examined. Besides, to understand good leadership, we must recognize and
study the opposite of good leadership. We are learning as much from leaders which

Chinese Management Studies

Vol. 6 No. 2, 2012
pp. 257-270
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1750-614X
DOI 10.1108/17506141211236695

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258

are considered bad ones as from those good ones (Kellerman, 2004). Therefore,
studying the dark side of leaders is supposed to make some contribution to the
amendment of theoretical systems of leadership.
Destructive behaviors are ubiquitous in our workplace. Researchers have different
concepts for it, such as abusive supervision, bully and aggression. Abusive
supervision is not only negatively related to employees job satisfaction and work
performance, but also increases their turnover intention and even some senseless acts,
which would do great harm to organizations. In 2010, the Foxconn jump event has set
off an animated discussion, in which frontline managers often adopt mocking, venting
and discrimination behavior during the production process, the negative effect caused
by abusive supervision was widely considered as one of the most important reasons.
Based on evidence from enterprises in Chinese culture background, this paper
focused on abusive supervision and LMX, in which EI played as antecedent and trust
as consequence variables.
2. Literature review, hypotheses and methods
2.1 Relationship between abusive supervision, LMX and subordinates trust
Tepper (2000) had pioneered the concept of abusive supervision. In his view, abusive
supervision refers to subordinates perceptions of the extent to which supervisors
engage in the sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors, excluding
physical contact. Some aspects of this definition are of specific interest. First, abusive
supervision is subordinates perceptions, which means that while one subordinate may
view a supervisory action as abusive, another may not. Second, abusive supervisory
behaviors refer only to the behaviors themselves, not to the intentions of actions. Third,
abusive supervision does not refer to physical contact. Physical contact would fall
under the spectrum of violent behaviors. Finally, abusive supervision refers to a
sustained display of negative supervisory behaviors, not just a one-time event
(Tepper, 2000; Harris et al., 2007). The studies on abusive supervision demonstrate the
negative impact abusive supervision has on a variety of individual outcomes such as
higher levels of anxiety (Bordia and Tang, 2009), helplessness (Ashforth, 1997),
increased levels of work-family conflict, turnover intention and emotion exhaustion
(Tepper, 2000) and lower levels of mental health and self-esteem (Hobman et al., 2009).
Moreover, abusive supervision is also negatively related to self-efficacy (Duffy et al.,
2002) and job satisfaction (Tepper, 2000) and so on.
Among the consequence variables of abusive supervision. We believe it is important
to pay attention to the variable of trust. Trust is essential for cooperation. It is the most
direct, economical and effective way for leaders to improve the effectiveness of
organizations (Kramer and Tyler, 1996). Improving subordinates trust in their
supervisors will help form a harmonious relationship in the organizations resulting in
organizational citizenship behavior and improving subordinates job performance,
loyalty and willingness to obey supervisor decisions and organization regulations, as
well as reducing uncertainty, lowering transaction costs enhancing internal resources
to more rational use, thus improving organizational effectiveness (Barney and
Hansen, 1994).
According to Whitener et al. (1998) social exchange and mutual benefiting which we
call reciprocity are important basis of trust. But there can also be negative reciprocity,
where negative treatment is returned or repaid with negative behaviors

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(Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005). The leaders would win trust from subordinates if their
behaviors conform to the principles of openness, fairness and impartiality (Hua, 2008).
In contrast, if a leader indulged in abusive behavior, it will inevitably level down
subordinates trust in leaders. (Sayles, 1989; Sims and Lorenzi, 1992). Several studies
argue that trust is an important outcome that either increases or decreases through time
as a result of favorable or unfavorable experiences in workplace. Abusive supervision is
a particularly unpleasant circumstance that can be predicted to contribute to feelings of
distrust and negative attitudes towards the organization (Tepper, 2007).
In summary, we believe that in order to enhance subordinates trust, leaders need to
show applicable attitudes and behaviors, such as encouraging subordinates, coming
forward with help to their work and identifying with their values, so that the
subordinates would pay back high level of trust and hard work. If leaders present more
abusive behaviors during the management process, it will level down subordinates
trust in leaders. These arguments help to yield the following hypothesis:
H1. Abusive supervision has a negative effect on subordinates trust.
As previously stated, one way to understand the mechanism of leaders behavior on
subordinates trust is to treat the relationship between organization and employees as
social exchange. Processes of social association can be considered as an exchange of
activity, tangible or intangible and more or less rewarding or costly, between at least two
persons (Homans, 1961). When people are gathered together, before common norms or
goals or role expectations have crystallized among them, the advantages to begin from
entering into exchange relations furnish incentives for social interaction and the exchange
processes serve as mechanisms for regulating social interaction (Blau, 1964). The basic
principle of social exchange may be this: an individual who supplies rewarding services to
another obligates him, thus to discharge this obligation, the obligated one must furnish
benefits to the first in return. Mauss (1954) claimed that, people not only exchange
economic value, they exchange courtesies, entertainments, ritual, military assistance and
so on, just as one part of a wide and enduring contact. When there is no way to assure an
appropriate return for a favor, social exchange requires trusting others to discharge their
obligations. Typically, however, exchange relations evolve in a slow process, starting
with minor transactions in which little trust is required because little risk is involved
(Blau, 1964). Graen et al. (1982) develop a new taxonomy of approaches to leadership. They
discussed LMX as a relationship-based approach to leadership. In Jin et al.,s (2007) study,
LMX plays a leading role in the process of subordinates trust to leaders. The higher level
of LMX, the higher level of trust leaders will get. The second hypothesis of this paper is:
H2. LMX has a positive effect on subordinates trust.
2.2 Relationships between emotional intelligence, abusive supervision and LMX
Emotional intelligence (EI) can be described as an ability to reason with emotions, to
assimilate emotion-related feelings and to manage them. It is also explained by ones
ability to perceive emotions accurately and to reflectively regulate emotions in a way
that promotes emotional and intellectual growth (Goleman, 2001). Capacity for the
identification, control and management of emotion makes people easier to develop
social competencies that include constructive communications, positive interpersonal
relationships and good management skills. Waldman et al. (2001) defined
the transformational leadership as a combination that would benefit both leaders

Abusive
supervision
and LMX
259

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260

and subordinates. The transformational leader behaviors may include describing a

good vision, conveying sense of mission and motivating employees. The advantageous
influence of those behaviors may make subordinates feel easy at work and express
high level of trust. Kellett et al. (2002) found that leaders EI has a significant positive
correlation with relation-oriented and task-oriented leader behavior. Sosik and
Megarian (2001) believed leaders EI can influence his transformational leadership,
with psychological empowerment as a moderating variable. Purkable (2003) held that
leaders EI had a significant positive correlation with some variables of leadership
behavior. Kellett et al. (2002), Ferres and Connell (2004) and Bryson (2004) proved that
some dimensions of leaders EI have significant positive correlations with leadership.
From the definition of abusive supervision we can see that there are many opposite
features between abusive supervision and transformational leadership. Based on the
above discussion, we make the third hypothesis as below.
H3.The lower EI levels of superiors, the higher level of abusive supervision
subordinates would perceive superiors with a high level of EI have good communication
and interpersonal skills and can communicate with their subordinates timely and
properly. They offer support when subordinates get stuck, so the subordinates begin to
have trust and expectations on them, during which a high level of leader-subordinate
exchange comes into being. On the contrary, if superiors ignore their subordinates
emotion and there is little communication between employees and superiors, employees
will gradually become disappointed with superiors and have little trust and expectations
on superiors, thus causing low levels of leader-member exchange (LMX). In practice,
leaders with high levels of EI behave maturely and modestly in work and are more likely
to settle disputes in a peaceful and appropriate way (Smith, 2006). So employees are quite
willing to establish cooperative relationship with such leaders, expecting to get more
opportunities for advancement. All these arguments help us to form H4:
H4. The higher EI levels of superiors, the more of LMX subordinates would perceive.
2.3 The moderating role of relationship length
If abusive supervision takes place frequently or lasts for a long time, it invariably
causes employees antipathy and then brings about subordinates distrust.
Furthermore, it takes time for people to know each other. Theres a common saying
in China that you can know a person only after a long time. Only when people get along
for a time can they trust each other. So we can speculate that the relationship length
affects the relationship between superiors abusive supervision and subordinates trust.
In addition, the LMX is also affected by relationship length. After a long time of
mutual benefiting of superiors and their subordinates, their cooperative relationship is
validated and consolidated. The cooperative relationship and mutual benefiting in the
long run can help subordinates get superiors praise, as well as help superiors get their
subordinates trust in return. So relationship length influences the relationship between
LMX and subordinates trust. To be concrete, the longer relationship length and the
higher LMX, the more subordinates trust:
H5. Relationship length affects the relationship between leaders abusive
supervision and subordinates trust.
H6. Relationship length affects the relationship between LMX and subordinates trust.

2.4 The mediating roles of abusive supervision and LMX in the relationship between EI
and subordinates trust
The above discussion is intended to explain that leaders EI can affect subordinates
trust through two different ways: abusive supervision and LMX. Our last two
hypotheses are as follows:

Abusive
supervision
and LMX

H7. Abusive supervision partially mediates the relationship between leaders EI

and subordinates trust.

261

H8. LMX partially mediates the relationship between leaders EI and

subordinates trust.
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All our eight hypotheses can be described by this model (Figure 1).
2.5 Methods
2.5.1 Measuring tools.
Leaders EI. We use the WLEIS questionnaire of Wong et al. (2002) to measure leaders
EI. There are 16 terms, including four dimensions: self-emotional evaluation (e.g.
usually I know why I have some feeling), the cognition and evaluation of others
emotion (e.g. usually I can guess my friends emotion from their behaviors), emotional
control (e.g. I can calm down quickly when angry) and self-motivation with emotion
(e.g. I often encourage myself to do the best). The questionnaire is of high reliability
and validity. Items were rated proteges on a five-point scale ranging from 1 (disagree
strongly) to (agree strongly).
Abusive supervision. The questionnaire of 15 terms by Tepper (2000), which was
revised with the method of back-translation by Taiwan Scholar Wu Zongyou was
employed. Items were rated proteges on a five-point scale ranging from 1 (disagree
strongly) to (agree strongly).
Leader-member exchange. The widely used LMX-7 scale was applied in the paper,
which was proposed by Graen et al. (1982). Hui et al. (1999) translated it into Chinese
and it was used widely in Chinese culture. We use the Chinese scale in our study.
The coefficient of internal consistency of the Chinese scale is between 0.80 and 0.90.
Hui, Law and Chen revised it during translation. They found that the

Abusive
supervision
H 3

Relationship
length
H5

H6

H1
Leader's
emotional
intelligence

H7H8

Subordinate's
trust
H2+

H4+
LMX

Figure 1.
Structural relations
among variables

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262

reliability of the scale was 0.86 in Chinese companies. 7-Likert was used
from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The high score means high level
of LMX.
Subordinates trust in leaders. The questionnaire of subordinates trust to their
leaders was worked out by McAllister (1995), which contains 11 questions with five
emotional trust and six cognitive trust ones. The coefficients of internal consistency of
emotional trust subscale and cognitive trust subscale are 0.89 and 0.91 in his research.
The items of the two subscales are of high load in confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).
7-Likert was used from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), with high scores
representing high employee trust.
Control variables. The questionnaire included respondents age,
gender, education level, tenure with current leader and so on, all of which are
control variables.
2.5.2 Data collection. Paired questionnaire surveys were conducted on both
employees and their leaders. Employees finished scales on their perceived abusive
supervision, LMX and their trust in superiors; their leaders finished the questionnaire
on EI. Finally, 201 valid questionnaires were received (response rate 57 percent) from
enterprises in Shenzhen, China. Among subordinates 110 were female (55 percent),
91 were male (45 percent). The age of subordinates was 18 to 50, with an average of 27.
The supervisor sample reported an average age of 34 range from 24 to 56 and 92 were
female (46 percent), 109 were male (53 percent). It was worth of noting that just as
expected, the mean of abusive supervision was 1.39, which was similar to those found
in others studies where mean levels of abusive supervision have ranged from lows of
1.26 (sample 1 in Tepper et al., 2004) and 1.38 (Tepper, 2000) to highs of
1.70 (Zellars et al., 2002).
3. Data analysis and results
3.1 The mediating roles of LMX and abusive supervision
Table I provides the intercorrelations of the latent variables. Supporting H1 to H4,
abusive supervision had a negatively impact on subordinates trust and LMX
significantly positively influenced the affective and cognitive trust. It also showed that
EI significantly influenced the hypothesized mediator of LMX and abusive supervision
in the predicted directions.
CFA was used to examine the measurement model. The analysis results were
shown in Table II. x 2/df of all the four scales were less than 2.5, meanwhile the SRMR

Variables

Table I.
Intercorrelations among
the latent variables

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Emotional intelligence
Abusive supervision
LMX
Affective trust
Cognitive trust

(0.813)
20.248 *
0.374 *
0.283 *
0.340 *

(0.912)
20.359 *
20.421 *
20.468 *

(0.728)
0.472 *
0.508 *

(0.774)
0.550 *

(0.860)

Notes: Significant at: *p , 0.01; n 201; figures in parentheses are alpha internal consistency
reliabilities

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were all less than 0.08 and NNFI CFI IFI GFI were all greater than 0.9. The goodness of
fit statistics indicated a good fit to the data.
To evaluate the mediation of LMX and abusive supervision, we compared the fit of
three partially mediated models to the fully mediated model:
(1) a model with two direct paths from EI to the two outcome variables;
(2) a model with a direct path from EI to affective trust; and
(3) a model with a direct path from EI to cognitive trust.

Abusive
supervision
and LMX
263

The results were presented in Table III. As shown in that table, the partially mediated
model 1 was the best fitting model. Results from this indicate that LMX and abusive
supervision partially mediate the influence of EI on subordinates trust and provide
support for H7 and H8.
Figure 2 shows the LISREL estimates for the partially mediated model 1 sized
paths. As shown in the figure, EI was positively related to LMX quality, which in turn
was related to the affective and cognitive trust, meanwhile, abusive supervision
partially mediates the relationship between leaders EI and subordinates trust. H7 and
H8 were supported.
3.2 The moderating role of relationship length
To examine the moderation hypotheses, we performed two separate hierarchical
regression analyses. Each analysis had three steps. Table IV presents the test of the
moderating effect that relationship length has on the relationship between abusive
supervision and affective trust, cognitive trust. The control variables were entered in
the first step. In the second step, we entered the main effects (abusive supervision
and relationship length). Finally, the abusive supervision X relationship length
variable was entered in the third step. Both variables were mean-centered as is
suggested for variables that are to be constituents of product terms (Aiken and West,
1991). Table IV presents the results of hierarchical regression. The results show no

Measurement model

x2

df

x 2/df

RMSEA

NNFI

CFI

IFI

GFI

EI
LMX
Abusive supervision
Trust

97.24
12.02
113.27
25.62

45
7
50
12

2.161
1.717
2.265
2.135

0.076
0.060
0.080
0.075

0.94
0.96
0.97
0.97

0.96
0.98
0.98
0.99

0.96
0.98
0.98
0.99

0.93
0.98
0.91
0.96

Models
1.
2.
3.
4.

Fully mediated model

Partially mediated model 1a
Partially mediated model 2b
Partially mediated model 3c

x2

df

X2/df

RMSEA

NNFI

CFI

IFI

GFI

267.92
236.73
258.08
251.67

127
124
125
125

2.11
1.91
2.06
2.10

0.074
0.067
0.073
0.071

0.95
0.96
0.95
0.95

0.96
0.96
0.96
0.96

0.96
0.96
0.96
0.96

0.87
0.88
0.87
0.87

Notes: n 201; ain comparison to the fully mediated model, partially mediated model1adds two
paths from EI to the two outcomes: affective trust and cognitive trust; bpartially mediated model 2
adds a path from EI to affective trust; cpartially mediated model 3 adds path from EI to cognitive trust

Table II.
Results of measurement
model fit (n 201)

Table III.
Results of model
comparisons

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6,2

LMX

0.38**
Affective
trust

0.45**
0.28**

264

0.48**

Emotional
intelligence

0.19**

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0.52**

Figure 2.
Estimated path
coefficients of the partially
mediated model 1

Cognitive
trust
Abusive
supervision

0.16**

Note: *p , 0.05 and * *p , 0.01

Independent variables

Table IV.
Results of hierarchical
regression analyses a
(n 201)

0.47**

Step 1
Subordinates sex
Subordinates age
Subordinates level of
education
Leaders sex
Leaders age
Leaders level of education
Number of subordinates
R2
Step 2
Abusive supervision (A)
Relationship length (B)
R2
eR 2
Step 3
AB
R2
eR 2

Dependent variables
Affective trust
Cognitive trust
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
0.047 2 0.019
0.096
0.033
0.111
0.049

20.017
0.034
0.053

0.012 2 0.023
0.114
0.041
20.129 2 0.129
20.057
0.009
0.041

20.024
0.038
20.128
0.012

2 0.365 * * 20.367 * *
0.119
0.116
0.176
0.135 * *
20.028
0.177
0.001

0.144 *
2 0.053
0.001

0.054
20.143
20.084

0.058
20.139
20.077

0.058
0.009
0.007
0.227 * *
0.126
0.119
0.505
20.053
20.052
0.199
0.186 * *
0.191
0.069
20.491 * * 20.495 * *
0.171 *
0.166 *
0.316
0.247 * *
20.057
0.319
0.003

Note: Significant at: *p , 0.05 and * *p , 0.01

prediction that relationship length moderates the relationship between abusive

supervision and affective trust (b 2 0.028, p . 0.05) cognitive trust (b 2 0.057,
p . 0.05), H5 was not supported.
Table V presents the test of the moderating effect that relationship length has on the
relationship between LMX and affective trust cognitive trust. The control variables
were entered in the first step. In the second step, we entered the main effects (LMX
and relationship length). Finally, the LMX X relationship length variable was entered
in the third step. The results show that relationship length moderates the relationship

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Independent variables
Step 1
Subordinates sex
Subordinates age
Subordinates level of
education
Leaders sex
Leaders age
Leaders level of education
Number of subordinates
R2
Step 2
LMX (A)
Relationship length (B)
R2
eR 2
Step 3
AB
R2
eR 2

Step 1
0.047
0.096
0.111

Dependent variables
Affective trust
Step 2
Step 3
Step 1
0.040
0.031
0.102

0.037
0.010
0.081

0.012
0.026
0.114
0.057
20.129 20.129
20.057
0.026
0.041

0.029
0.068
2 0.122
0.023

0.484 * *
0.103
0.279
0.238 * *

0.515 * *
0.097

2 0.128 *
0.293
0.015 *

0.144 *
2 0.053
0.001

Cognitive trust
Step 2
Step 3
0.134 *
2 0.140
2 0.016

0.133 *
20.150 *
20.026

Abusive
supervision
and LMX
265

0.058
0.069
0.070
0.157 *
0.163 *
0.227 * *
0.505
2 0.056
20.053
0.199
0.187 * *
0.186 * *
0.069
0.506 * *
0.155 *
0.338
0.270 * *

0.521 * *
0.152 *

20.065
0.342
0.004

Note: Significant at: *p , 0.05 and * *p , 0.01

between LMX and affective trust (b 2 0.128, p , 0.05), however, cognitive trust
(b 2 0.057, p . 0.05) did not significant, partially supported H6.
In sum, these results provide support for the structural relations among them. In
particular, EI influence abusive supervision and LMX, furthermore, abusive
supervision and LMX partially mediate the relationship between leaders EI and
subordinates trust on leaders and the relationship length moderates the relationship
between LMX and affective trust.
4. Discussion and conclusion
4.1 The main contributions
Through the introduction of abusive supervision, LMX and EI, this paper studies the
mechanism of EI on subordinates trust. The main contributions of this study are as
follows.
First, the paper discussed the antecedent factor of abusive supervision, which was
supported by empirical data. We found that the EI level of superiors has a significant
negative impact on abusive supervision. Grandey (2000) suggested that intelligent
individuals with higher EI can keep continuous positive moods and feelings. In other
words, Leaders who have high level of EI tend to use less supervised behavior in the
management process. Leaders with low level of EI are more likely to use abusive
supervision. By discussing the influence factor of abusive supervision, we concluded the
way abusive behaviour affects organizations and employees, thus helping to find
effective methods to reduce such behaviors. In the previous, there were only a few papers
focusing on the cause of abusive supervision, in which abusive supervision was mainly
considered as a kind of aggression of supervisors. Hoobler and Brasss study showed

Table V.
Results of hierarchical
regression analyses b
(n 201)

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266

that employers perception of whether he was treated unfairly or whether the

psychological contract was breached leads to abusive supervision. Since it is improbable
and impractical for managers to take revenge on their subordinates, they may instead
extend abusive supervision on them (Hoobler and Brass, 2006; Tepper et al., 2004). Our
study suggests that leaders with high level of EI are more capable to manage their
emotions and pay more attention to subordinates feelings, which enables them to
behave rationally, kindly and gently in the process of management.
Second, the findings revealed that abusive supervision partially mediates the
relationship between leaders EI and subordinates trust, which means that leaders EI
was a main factor affecting their abusive behaviour and abusive supervision had a
negative effect on subordinates trust. The finding can help to understand the cause of
subordinates low level of trust on their superiors. Based on the conclusion, we can
improve leaders EI to reduce their abusive supervision, which would thus be an
effective method to enhance subordinates trust on supervisors.
Third, LMX has a positive effective on subordinates trust and partially mediates the
relationship between leaders EI and subordinates trust. Our finding is consistent with the
previous research (Chaoping and Chunmei, 2011), which proposed that high level of LMX
is positively related to subordinates trust. The finding shows that leaders may improve
relationship with their subordinates by social exchange. Leaders with high level of EI are
more likely to have a better way to deal with conflicts by controlling and regulating their
emotion and high level of LMX causes employees to have more trust on their leaders.
Finally, relationship length moderates the relationship between LMX and affective
trust, which is easy to understand. The longer the relationship length subordinates have
with their leader, the more exchange between them and then subordinates can have a
better idea of their leader, which furthermore, influences their level of affective trust on
the leader.
4.2 The significance of our findings
The theoretical hypotheses and the logistic frame were proved by empirical research and
statistical analysis, so on the basis of original concepts and relevant issues in practice, we
are able to give some advice on how to improve the level of organization management.
The main conclusion of this research can be referenced to manage employees
effectively, to build good leader-employee relationship, as well as to construct better
cooperative atmosphere. Based on the conclusion, leaders with high level of EI usually
show less abusive supervision and tend to have better relationship with their
subordinates, thus subordinates often have more trust to them. Therefore, as for the
recruiting of managers, more attention should be paid to the candidates EI. EI should
be taken as an important appraisal criterion in managers recruiting in order to pick up
more excellent managers to support the organizations development. In addition, as one
kind of ability, EI can be improved by training. Petrides et al. (2004) proposed that
postnatal training can be of great help in developing ones EI. So managers can also be
trained to improve their EI and communication and interpersonal skills.
It has been proved that superiors EI has a significant positive effect on subordinates
personal trust. However, the approaches are diversified, in which superiors abusive
supervision and LMX perceived by employees all take mediating effects. So superiors who
have less abusive supervision behavior and a better LMX relationship may get more trust

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from their subordinates. Based on the conclusion, it is available to enhance subordinates

trust by means of reducing superiors abusive supervision and improving the LMX.
Leaders abusive supervision behavior has a negative effective on subordinates,
especially on subordinates trust, so managers should reduce their abusive supervision
and improve their relationship with subordinates, thus to form an atmosphere of trust
and support in the organization. Employees will do their best in such an atmosphere.
One of the necessary measures we could take is to build the monitoring and
supervising systems, thus to recover the losses caused by abusive supervision.
4.3 Limitation and Future Research
By bringing in abusive supervision and LMX, the paper discussed the mechanism of
leaders EI on subordinates trust. Although most of the hypotheses are verified in this
paper, there are still many questions worth of discussing in the future.
The major limitation of this study lies in the subjective measurement of abusive
supervision and its validity in the Chinese specific environment. It was measured through
the eyes of subordinates, which means that while one subordinate may view a
supervisory action as abusive, another may not, so the subordinates may not have a
consistent evaluation. The Chinese have a comparatively large power distance and was
considered to be a collective society, so the scale developed in the West may not
applicability in China. Development of more sophisticated questionnaires or even entirely
different methods to assess abusive supervision is desirable, such as view from the leader,
whether there are some corresponding concepts that can measurable or controllable.
Second, Podsakoff and Organ (1986) highlighted that common method variance
occurs when two or more measures arise from one source, such that any defect in the
source would contaminate both measures. According to their proposal, this study
adopted different methods to reduce the common method variance, we not only
guaranteed the anonymity of the questionnaire and cleared that the answers were no
right or wrong, but also used subordinate-superior matching questionnaire approach
to collect data. Those methods could reduce the Common Method Variances to some
degree, but more difficulty was added to the collecting process. This may have an
effect on the universality of the conclusions.
Third, the cross-sectional nature of the research design which prevents testing for
causal relationships. What more, in the model of this study, we only discussed leaders EI
as the independent variable of abusive supervision, LMX and subordinates trust.
Whether there are other influence factors is yet to be considered. As is known, behavior is
the result of complex factors. So leaders abusive supervision to their subordinates was
also affected by many factors, such as superiors perceive of subordinates working ability
and poor performance. It is valuable to do more analysis and research on the generation
mechanism of abusive supervision. Also the control of variables is not enough, some
relevant variables were not controlled in this paper, such as intelligence quotient (IQ) and
personality, which may cause explanatory power of EI on trust to be higher than reality.
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Further reading
Aryee, S., Sun, L.Y., Chen, Z.X.G. and Debrah, Y.A. (2008), Abusive supervision and contextual
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Jia, L.D., Song, J.W. and Li, C.P. (2007), Leadership styles and employees work attitude the
mediating role of reciprocity and trust of empirical research, China Management Studies,
Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 13-44.

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Corresponding author
Ding Xiaqi can be contacted at: dingxq@szu.edu.cn

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