Effects of supervisor-directed deviance on retaliation
Retaliation is one of the most common and rational responses to interpersonal deviance
and refers to a target’s deliberate destructive actions to harm the perpetrator (Michalak et al.,
2019). The revenge literature shows that individuals desire to punish offenders for malicious
acts to make the wrongdoer ‘pay’ for their harmful behaviour (see review by Jackson et al.,
2019). For example, individuals strongly retaliate against personal offence (Aquino, Tripp,
and Bies, 2006) and unfair treatment (see Hershcovis et al., 2007). Thus, retaliation is a likely
response from supervisors experiencing deviance from their subordinates.
In principle, our expectation regarding supervisors’ retaliatory behaviour in response to
subordinates’ deviant behaviour mirrors the expectation of subordinate retaliation against
abusive behaviour by the supervisor, which is strongly supported by existing research (e.g.,
Lian et al., 2014; Vogel and Mitchell, 2017). However, supervisors have greater access to
retaliation because of their hierarchical advantage in the organisation. Concerning supervisor-
directed deviance, the target (the supervisor) has greater power and punitive latitude (i.e.,
control over resources and career outcomes) than the aggressor (the subordinate). Thus, the
supervisor may easily leverage this power to retaliate against a deviant subordinate. This logic
is supported by research suggesting that a victim with a higher status than the offender is more
likely to seek revenge (Aquino et al., 2006).
As a form of interpersonal deviance (Michalak et al., 2019), retaliation can include
various behaviours. Meta-analytical findings on deviance by supervisors or peers confirm that
deviance from Party A is commonly reciprocated with deviance from Party B of an equivalent
or greater level (Greco et al., 2019). Therefore, their power advantage is likely to encourage
supervisors to respond to supervisor-directed deviance with an equivalent subordinate-directed
deviance, or with greater retaliation through career sanctions such as giving lower performance
ratings (Siegel Christian et al., 2012). Therefore, we suggest that supervisors directly respond to
deviance with retaliation, which includes career penalties.
Apart from investigating supervisors’ retaliatory response to subordinates’ deviance, we
also explore how this response would unfold using felt leader identity threat as an explanatory
pathway. According to AET, workplace events are proximal causes of emotions experienced in the
workplace; that is, ‘things happen to people in work settings and people often react emotionally to
these events’ (Weiss and Cropanzano, 1996, p. 11). Supervisor-directed deviance is a negative
affective event in the sense that its appraisal or sensemaking may trigger specific feelings such as
anger (see Oh and Farh, 2017) rather than general moods (Michalak et al.,
2019). Beyond anger, however, as leaders and targets of deviant behaviour, supervisors are
likely to feel and experience threats to their self-concept (Petriglieri, 2011, p. 644).
Specifically, supervisor–subordinate interactions provide the actors with an
opportunity to develop self-defined leadership and followership identities (DeRue and
Ashford, 2010; Ashforth and Schinoff, 2016). Leader identity develops when individuals
assert themselves as leaders and followers endorse their leadership (DeRue and Ashford,
2010). From this perspective, subordinates’ deviance exposes supervisors to an identity-
threatening, disruptive event. Consequently, they may interpret deviance as a lack of
leadership endorsement and feel their identity as a leader getting challenged and impaired
(i.e., felt leader identity threat; see Petriglieri, 2011).
In turn, felt leader identity threat is expected to elicit retaliation against the perceived
source of threat (see Petriglieri, 2011). AET explains that affective workplace events are ‘distal
causes of behavioural responses through affective mediation’ (Weiss and Cropanzano 1996, p.
31). Thus, supervisor-directed deviance can be a distal cause of retaliatory responses mediated
through felt leader identity threat. For instance, experiencing a threat could activate
supervisors’ self-protection mechanism of fighting back and punishing those perceived to have
caused the threat—the deviant subordinate. Empirical research has identified identity threat as
a key antecedent of harmful behaviours towards others (Aquino and Douglas, 2003).
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