How abusive supervision and abusive supervisory climate influence salesperson creativity and sales team effectiveness in China

Adopting the social information processing theory and social comparison theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine how abusive supervision and abusive supervisory climate jointly influence salesperson creativity, sales team creativity, and team performance.

The study conducted hierarchical linear modeling and hierarchical regression to analyze the paired data from 102 sales teams comprising 319 salespeople and 102 managers.

At the individual level, abusive supervision had negative effect on salesperson creativity via psychological safety. Abusive supervisory climate played a cross-level moderating role in the relationship between abusive supervision and psychological safety. At the team level, abusive supervisory climate was negatively related to sales team creativity via averaged salesperson creativity and negatively associated with sales team performance through sales team creativity.

This study adds to knowledge of how abusive supervision and abusive supervisory climate jointly affect salesperson psychological safety and creativity. It also contributes to abusive supervision and creativity literature by linking abusive supervisory climate and sales team creativity by integrating social information processing theory and social comparison theory.