Effect of abusive supervision on employee’s intention to quit and the neutralizing role of meaningful work in Indian IT organizations

Several studies have investigated the harmful effects of abusive supervision on subordinates’ behaviour and performance, including their intention to quit. However, there is a conspicuous dearth of empirical studies testing the deleterious interpersonal relationship, especially in Indian organizations. The purpose of this study is to explore the moderating role of meaningful work as a neutralizer in mitigating the pernicious effect of abusive supervision on subordinates’ turnover intention.

Data were collected from software professionals working in several Indian IT companies through self-report questionnaires (n = 227), using a time-lagged design on two occasions (span between T1 and T2 was three to four weeks).

The result confirms that abusive supervision is strongly related to subordinates’ intention to quit. Also, the study finds meaningful work to have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between abusive supervision and intention to quit.

The number of empirical studies exploring the pernicious effect of abusive supervision in Indian organizational context is almost negligible. In addition, the current study is among the few studies that have investigated the moderating effect of meaningful work on the relationship between abusive supervision and intention to quit.