Abusive Supervision. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior Vol. 4:123-152 (Volume publication date March 2017)  First published online as a Review in Advance on January 11, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-041015-062539 “The overarching purpose of this article is to review and synthesize the accumulated evidence that explores the causes and consequences of abusive supervision in work organizations. Our review is organized in three sections. In the first section, we discuss research trends and provide clarification regarding the pressing and not-so-pressing problems with the way that abusive supervision is ordinarily conceptualized and studied. In the second section, we highlight problems and prospects in research on the consequences of abusive supervision. In the third section, we turn our attention to the growing body of research that explores the antecedent conditions and processes that explain when abusive supervision is more or less likely to occur. Throughout the article, we offer an overview of what has been learned over the past 15-plus years and highlight unanswered questions that warrant examination in future studies.”

• See also The New York Times – When the Bully Is the Boss – “The presumption that tough bosses get results — and fast — compared with gentler leaders is widespread, and rooted partly in the published life stories of successful C.E.O.s. Bobby Knight, the Indiana University basketball coach and author of “The Power of Negative Thinking,” was notoriously harsh, and enormously successful. So was Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple. But researchers who study organizations, productivity and leadership styles attribute the achievements of such figures to exceptional ability. The research thus far has found no evidence to support the axiom that tougher bosses get better results. “We’ve been looking for it,” said Rebecca Greenbaum, a professor in Rutgers University’s school of management and labor relations, who formerly worked in the insurance industry. “We’d love to find out if there are good aspects of abusive leadership. There’s been a lot of research. We just can’t find any upside…”