Do coping strategies play a role? Examining the effects of abusive supervision and work engagement on employees’ helping behavior

Introduction

Employees’ helping behavior (EHB), an individual activity to support others and the employer organization, is important to competitive advantage in the hospitality industry (Zhu et al., 2023). It comprises employees’ proactive and creative problem-solving in the workplace and is increasingly an integral employee support practice (Ye et al., 2021). Unfortunately, abusive supervision could limit employees’ willingness and motivation to support colleagues in the workplace (Aryee et al., 2007), leading to low morale or motivation to work. Prior studies (Nandkeolyar et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2020) have put forward that abusive supervision, considered as stress, can be more or less detrimental to work outcomes like work engagement, depending on the coping strategies that employees adopt. Nonetheless, employees may adopt coping strategies to manage their work roles and productivity, of which little is known within the hospitality industry.

Therefore, grounded on the conservation of resource (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 1989), the study’s model is premised on the logic that abusive supervision depletes employees’ physical and emotional resources. Thus, employees become psychologically and emotionally stressed from the abuse since little has been done to avert its emergence. Therefore, the study seeks to test the regulatory role of coping strategies on the relationship between abusive supervision and work engagement, unlike the study of Zhu et al. (2023), which tested the relationship between supportive supervision and helping behaviors of hospitality employees in Ghana.

Abusive supervision and EHB

Abusive supervision is characterized by hostility directed against subordinates, involving public censure, harsh and angry outbursts, incivility, and compulsion (Barnes et al., 2015), leading to their anxiety about their jobs. Abused employees are less likely to engage in discretionary behaviors like helping coworkers. Thus, failure to provide emotional, instrumental, informational, and esteem support to others depletes citizenship behavior (Quansah et al., 2022). Therefore, a supervisor’s abusive behavior promotes employees’ low helping behavior. Employee helping behaviors refer to actions through which one person willingly assists others (Asim et al., 2023). It is a prosocial or voluntary helping behavior exhibited by hospitality employees, which varies depending on the behaviors of their supervisors (Wong et al., 2022; Zhu et al., 2023). Empirical research indicates that abusive supervision hinders helping behaviors, which are discretionary behaviors not formally rewarded but essential for organizational functionality and effectiveness (Eluwole et al., 2022). Therefore, victims of abusive supervision reduce interpersonal and volitional behaviors at work (Aryee et al., 2008) causing behavioral effects by reducing helping behaviors.

Work engagement mediation

Work engagement is characterized by employees’ vigor, dedication, and absorption. With vigor, employees feel strengthened and more resilient toward the specific goal of service quality. Likewise, dedication makes employees feel motivated to engage in helping behaviors that increase service quality and productivity (Wang, 2025). Absorption increases employees’ attachment to their organizations which employees interact and communicate ideas with each other. For instance, engaged employees have an enthusiastic and emotive bond with their work responsibilities and organization (Ampofo, 2021). A significant research topic in the hospitality management literature is work engagement owing to its impact on work outcomes, such as low levels of absenteeism and turnover intentions (Karatepe et al., 2020). Work engagement is a mediator in this study since hospitality employees with limited resources might have difficulty engaging in their work, given the already stressful nature of their tasks.

Abused hospitality employees exhibit high levels of job burnout and turnover intentions (Taheri et al., 2024), and low levels of positive organizational citizenship behaviors (AlZgool et al., 2023). A study by Barkat et al. (2024) indicated that work engagement exerted a mediation effect in the nexus of transformational leadership and organizational citizenship behavior of employees in the hotel industry in Pakistan. Likewise, a study by McManus et al. (2025) in Ireland found that work engagement mediated the relationship between perceived workplace support and organizational citizenship behaviors in the hospitality sector.

Moderation role of coping strategies

Coping refers to a person’s effort to accept or reduce the impact of stress, whether the stressor or the experience (Yagil et al., 2011). For instance, emotion-focused coping reduces psychological distress and consists of three strategic employee behaviors avoidance of contact (Tepper et al., 2017) and support-seeking, i.e., obtaining moral support, sympathy, or understanding from others, and regulating a person’s feelings and emotional response to the problem instead of addressing the problem (Carver et al., 1989). The literature appears to support the idea that seeking social support lowers personal stress levels (Huang et al., 2018). For instance, in the hospitality context, employees are saddled with stress (Obeng et al., 2024), and turn to, as a personal strategy, seek social support by confiding in friends and family about personal problems. Similarly, hospitality employees, with avoidance of contact as a personal tendency, selectively disdain the negative features of events and attend to only positive features so that the real problems causing a stressful situation fade away from awareness. Avoidance of contact is associated with having a counterproductive oversight in reducing stress levels or disengaging with stressors such as abusive supervision. For example, Qin et al. (2025) found that avoidance of contact is one surest ways to cope with Intermittent abusive supervision in dynamic supervisor–subordinate relationships among aircrew workplaces. Likewise, reframing appears to be mentally reducing a psychological burden to gain self-reassurance and psychological ownership (Waqas et al., 2021). For instance, hospitality employees who are able to reframe themselves from abuse and invigorate from pain and loss tend to reduce stress from their supervisors (Qin et al., 2025).

Theoretical basis

Conversation of resource theory (COR) (Hobfoll, 2011) proposes that when there is sufficient provision of job resources, e.g., providing enormous support for employees or coworkers, irrespective of resource shortage, it results in high employee engagement towards their work (Xanthopoulou et al., 2009). On the contrary, employees’ engagement levels deplete when job resources are deficient to attenuate further loss of resources (Xanthopoulou et al., 2009). Employees anticipate a loss of resources when abused because they perceive that their supervisors are gradually exhibiting unsupportive behavior (Zhang et al., 2023). Therefore, employees decline to engage in helping behaviors toward coworkers (i.e., failure to exercise EHB) when faced with abusive supervision. Such destructive behavior attenuates work engagement which declines work morale. Thus, the research model establishes the relationship among the constructs under investigation in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Conceptual framework

Goal of the study

The study aimed to assess the relationship between abusive supervision and employees’ helping behaviors through the mediating role of work engagement and the moderating effect of coping strategies on the abusive supervision–work engagement relationship. The following hypotheses guided the study:

Hypothesis 1: Abusive supervision predicts lower EHB.

Hypothesis 2: Abusive supervision predicts lower work engagement.

Hypothesis 3: Work engagement is associated with higher EHB.

Hypothesis 4: Work engagement mediates the relationship between abusive supervision and EHB, for higher EHB.

Hypothesis 5a: Avoidance of contact negatively moderates the relationship between abusive supervision and work engagement, for lower work engagement.

Hypothesis 5b: Support-seeking positively moderates the relationship between abusive supervision and work engagement such that abused employees who receive social support become highly engaged.

Hypothesis 5c: Reframing moderates the relationship between abusive supervision and work engagement such that abused employees with a high reframing mindset are more work-engaged.

Method

Participants and setting

Participants were 386 frontline employees from 25 hospitality companies from Accra-Ghana, a Sub-Saharan African country, with 196 females (50.8%) and 190 males (49.2%). Regarding age, 78.3% were between 18 to 40 years, whereas 21.7% were between 41 and 60. Lastly, 132 (34.2%) of the respondents had worked for less than a year, 150 (38.9%) had worked from 1 to 5 years, 75 (19.4) had worked from 6 to 10 years, and 29 (7.5%) had worked for more than ten years. Table 1 depicts the demographics mean and standard deviation.

Measures

Participants self-reported their socio-demographic information. Further, they completed measures of abusive supervision (Mitchell & Ambrose, 2007), work engagement (Schaufeli et al., 2006), coping strategies (Yagil et al., 2011), and employees’ helping behavior (Lee & Allen, 2002). These measures were employed from existing literature. The measurements are described next.

Abusive supervision

Abusive supervision was assessed with the 5-item version of the abusive supervisor scale proposed by Mitchell and Ambrose (2007) that encompasses five items from the Abusive Supervision measurement. Two distinctive components are included in the scale: active interpersonal abuse by the supervisor (i.e., “ridicules me” and “tells me my thoughts and feelings are stupid”), and more passive acts of abuse (i.e., “doesn’t give me credit for jobs requiring a lot of effort”). We selected the five items as our measure of abusive supervision, given the items on the active interpersonal abuse dimension align with our area of research interest. “My supervisor ridicules me” and “My supervisor tells me my thoughts and feelings are stupid” are representative items. Responses ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The scale recorded the following validities and reliabilities of scores from the measure: Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.996, Standardized Root Mean Residual (SRMR) = 0.013, Average Variance Extracted (AVE) = 0.754, Construct Reliability (CR) = 0.938, Cronbach’s Alpha (C-α) = 0.936.

Work engagement

Work engagement was assessed with the 9-item Utrecht Work Engagement Scale proposed by Schaufeli et al. (2006). The scale measures three components with 3 items each of work engagement: vigor, dedication, and absorption. Representative items include: “At my work, I feel bursting with energy” (vigor), “I am enthusiastic about my job” (dedication), and “I am immersed in my work” (absorption). However, this study assessed the scale as unidimensional and yielded a combined reliability value of C-α = 0.96. Response options range from 1 (never) to 6 (always). The following values represent the validity of scores from the scale: CFI = 0.992, SRMR = 0.018, AVE = 0.716, CR = 0.958,

Employees’ helping behavior

The EHB measure was adopted from the OCBI 8-item scale (Lee & Allen, 2002). Sample items include “I willingly give my time to help others who have work-related problems.” Responses to the items ranged from 1 (never) to 7 (always). The scale’s reliability and validity are CFI = 0.989, SRMR = 0.021, AVE = 0.668, CR = 0.941, and C-α = 0.94.

Coping strategy

To measure employee’s coping strategies, we adopted the 3 components of the Emotion-focused scale proposed by Yagil et al. (2011). The scale items include: “I try to have the least possible contact with the supervisor” (avoidance of contact) with CFI = 0.998, SRMR = 0.005, AVE = 0.691, CR = 0.917, C-α = 0.91, “I talk to other people about how the supervisor’s behavior upsets me” (support-seeking) CFI = 0.997, SRMR = 0.008, AVE = 0.808, CR = 0.955, C-α = 0.95, and “I convince myself that I do my job well so that the supervisor can’t harm me” (Reframing) with CFI = 0.999, SRMR = 0.013, AVE = 0.669, CR = 0.910, C-α = 0.91. All the measures had good internal consistency.

Procedure

The Research and Ethics Committee of the School of Management at Jiangsu University approved this study. Before participating, the participants were informed of the voluntary and confidential nature of the study. Participants provided written informed consent. Moreover, participants were told there were no right or wrong answers and they should respond to the items honestly. A trained research assistant and the lead author distributed surveys on-site in a sealed, prepaid envelope, which would be used to return the responses. This activity was to ensure anonymity.

Statistical analysis

The data analysis started with descriptive analysis and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test the measurement reliability and validity using IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS v.22.) and Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS v.26.), respectively. AMOS then performed a structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis to test structural paths and the moderation of coping strategy on the proposed hypothesized relationship. The variables’ factor loadings, reliability, and validity were assessed as Cronbach’s alpha was used to establish the internal consistencies of the measures. To further confirm the reliability of the variables, the CFA factor loadings were significant at a 95% bias-corrected confidence interval when the sample was bootstrapped to 5000 with lower and upper bounds for the measures not containing zero.

Results

Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics, with the mean values for all variables ranging from 1.47 to 3.5923, with standard deviations ranging from 0.328 to 1.1907. The Pearson correlations show that abusive supervision correlated negatively significantly with EHB (r = −0.36, p < 0.01), whereas work engagement correlated positively significantly with EHB (r = 0.278, p < 0.01), suggesting preliminary support for the hypotheses. The values of the Cronbach’s alpha of the variables ranged from 0.91 to 0.96, surpassing the recommended 0.70 threshold and confirming good internal consistency. The analysis yielded an overall acceptable model fit indices of Chi-square (X2) = 742.78; df = 614, p-value < 0.001, Normed Chi-square (X2/df) = 1.210, CFI = 0.99; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = 0.023, SRMR = 0.03. The cutoff value of 0.90 (Hair et al., 1999) was surpassed by all other goodness-of-fit indices, i.e., goodness-of-fit index (GFI) = 0.907, normed fit index (NFI) = 0.944, and Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) = 0.989.

Work engagement mediation

Table 2 presents a good fit of the data with the estimated model measuring the direct relationships (X2 = 151.141; df = 103; p < 0.0001; X2/df = 1.467; CFI = 0.989; RMSEA = 0.035; SRMR = 0.036; NFI = 0.966; TLI = 0.987). The statistical results indicated that abusive supervision (β = −0.409, t = −8.22, p < 0.001) had a negatively significant relationship with EHB. This result implies that employees are reluctant to devote time and energy (resources) to helping co-workers with high supervisor abuse. Hence, this result supports Hypothesis 1. Work engagement was included in the main effect model to estimate the full structural mediation model. A 95% confidence interval bias-corrected bootstrapping analysis with a 5000 sample was performed. This was to provide further robust significance to the mediation effect. The structural mediation effect model yielded good fit indices (X2 = 359.914; df = 272; p < 0.0001; X2/df = 1.323; CFI = 0.989; RMSEA = 0.029; SRMR = 0.037; NFI = 0.955; TLI = 0.987). Comparing the direct and indirect relationship model fit indices proved that both model fits did not differ much.

In Table 3, abusive supervision had a standardized path coefficient effect of −0.223 (p-value < 0.001) on work engagement, suggesting that abusive supervision negatively correlated with work engagement. This finding supports Hypothesis 2. Similarly, work engagement had a standardized path coefficient effect of 0.229 (p-value < 0.001) on EHB. This result suggests that work engagement correlated positively with EHB, thus, supporting Hypothesis 3. Additionally, the structural mediation model exhibited that work engagement partially mediated abusive supervision—EHB significantly with standardized path coefficients of −0.051 (p-value < 0.001) with lower and upper bounds [−0.096, −0.023]. The lower and upper confidence intervals did not include zero. These results suggest that introducing work engagement into the model reduced the effect of abusive supervision while still influencing EHB. This finding indicates partial mediation, hence, supporting Hypothesis 4. Figure 2 demonstrates the estimated model of the study.

Figure 2: Estimated model. Note. ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

Coping strategies moderation

The moderation analysis treated work engagement as the dependent variable and coping strategies (Avoidance of contact, Reframing, support-seeking) as moderating variables. The results were arrived at by creating interaction terms to get standardized Zscores of variables using SPSS.

We tested avoidance of contact as a moderator, and the results indicate that the interaction term [−0.148 (p-value < 0.01)] exerted a negatively significant influence on the abusive supervision–work engagement relationship. This result supports Hypothesis 5a, as demonstrated by Figure 3a. Additionally, testing for the support-seeking effect, the interaction term [0.026 (p-value < 0.596)] exerted a positive insignificant influence on the abusive supervision–work engagement relationship. Therefore, Hypothesis 5b was not supported, as presented in Figure 3b. Moreover, the interaction term of reframing [−0.066 (p-value < 0.175)] exerted a negative insignificant influence on the abusive supervision–work engagement relationship. Hence, Hypothesis 5c was not supported, as represented by Figure 3c. The results in Table 4 show that support-seeking and reframing strategies had no statistical moderating effects in mitigating the negative influence of abusive supervision on work engagement in our data, contrary to the hypothesized nature of the relationship.

Figure 3: (a): Moderating effect of avoidance of contact on the relationship between abusive supervision and work engagement. (b): Moderating effect of support-seeking on the relationship between abusive supervision and work engagement. (c): Moderating effect of reframing on the relationship between abusive supervision and work engagement

Discussion

First, our study showed that abusive supervision had a negative significant relationship with EHB. Thus, frontline employees who experienced high abuse detailed low EHB, which is consistent with an earlier study (Zhang et al., 2019). When frontline employees suffer abuse, their enthusiasm, work values, and focus are lost, decreasing their motivation to display EHB since employees would want to conserve resources. This assertion aligns with COR theory (Hobfoll et al., 2018). In hospitality settings, abused frontline employees always feel unappreciated, which decreases their sense of belongingness, and they feel oppressed and stressed, promulgating their ineffectiveness in the workplace (Liu et al., 2023).

Second, the results indicated that employees who experienced abusive behaviors recounted low work engagement. Thus, abusive supervision mars the positive energy build-up of employees and leads to declined well-being (O’Donoghue et al., 2016). This phenomenon decreases employees’ trust in their supervisors, leading to diminished work engagement levels and not carrying out unassigned tasks (Idike et al., 2020). Abusive supervision decreases employees’ dedication, affecting their loyalty and support for their organization’s goals (Liu et al., 2023). Employees with high absorption developed an affective solid attachment to their work and would do everything possible to serve their organization (Azinga et al., 2023; Obeng et al., 2024). However, this affective connectedness to their organizations diminishes due to abusive supervision.

Third, the study validated that work engagement mediates the relationship between abusive supervision and EHB. This outcome suggests that frontline employees who feel devalued because of abusive supervision experience psychological, social, and emotional breakdowns and loss of identity as organizational members (Liu et al., 2021). However, with the introduction of work engagement, the negative relationship between abusive supervision and EHB declined. Since there was a positive correlation between work engagement and EHB, it presupposes that the vigor, absorption, and dedication that employees unleash towards working attitudes are powerful engagement mechanisms that promote positive attitudes and behaviors. Therefore, policies that ingrain work engagement should be among the supportive organizational factors to check abusive supervision’s effect on EHB. Thus, employees facing abusive supervision would make heroic efforts to exercise helping behaviors.

Finally, only avoidance of contact influence was confirmed (see also Yagil et al., 2011). Despite the fact that in the hospitality industry, employees and their supervisors work hand-in-hand; thus, work activities are an integrated process that involves numerous interactions and assistance among employees and supervisors (Ye et al., 2021; Zhu et al., 2023). These findings are not consistent with our hypothetical expectations. The frontline employees who experience abusive supervision feel that it is only a job and that other things in life matter and relieve themselves with inspiration from others.

Implications for theory and practice

Theoretically, the present study adds to COR as applied to the hospitality industry regarding how discretionary helping behavior may be undervalued in interpersonal relationships as work resources (Organ et al., 2010). Specifically, within the hospitality sector, the three work engagement variables (vigor, dedication, and absorption) do not tell the full story regarding EHB. Rather, coping strategy and how its interactions impact work engagement and EHB appear as a new explanatory pathway.

Practically, management should develop appropriate and efficient hiring procedures like behavioral-based interviews that could help weed out prospective supervisors prone to abusive behavior. Furthermore, management should provide on-the-job-practical training and coaching as awareness creation to supervisors on the defeatist consequences of abusive supervision on work engagement (Peng et al., 2014) and EHB (Aryee et al., 2007). Moreover, instituting support training strategies such as benevolence, sincerity, fairness, and experiential processing that dumping abusive supervision could help inspire supervisors to substitute abusive supervision for supportive supervision. In addition, for employees to uplift their declined engagement levels, management should instigate autonomy and feedback-friendly designs on job effectiveness and ensure that frontline employees have adequate and suitable resources in cooperation with abusive supervision.

Although support-seeking positively dampened the negative relationship between abusive supervision and work engagement insignificantly, it is of relevance that organizations inculcate the need for social support to newcomers throughout orientation and the socialization process so that they will be prepared to cope should they face stressful situations. Additionally, formalizing the support-seeking to abuse victims may help lessen the harmful impacts of abusive leadership. Creating a social support system may be essential to convey to the employees that the institution is a psychologically secure place to thrive.

Limitations and direction for future research

This study has some limitations. First, the use of cross-sectional data does not allow causal inferences. Moreover, because of frequent turnover and job mobility in the hospitality business, we could not contact several individuals who agreed to participate in both waves of data collection, which could have introduced unknown bias in the findings. Only frontline workers were considered for the survey; therefore, it is not apposite to generalize the findings. Hence, we advise that future studies consider the longitudinal design and several levels of employees for more definitive findings.

Conclusion

According to our findings, this study offers a novel and in-depth understanding of the variables that suffer the effects of abusive supervision on frontline hospitality workers. Findings suggest that coping strategies explain work passion, job satisfaction, and employee commitment among hospitality workers. They act as psychological buffers of the employees’ work environment. The present study makes a valuable contribution to the existing literature on abusive supervision, work engagement, coping strategies, and helping behaviors in the hospitality industry workplace settings.

Acknowledgement: The authors would like to thank all the participants in this study.

Funding Statement: The research was self-funded.

Author Contributions: Study conception and design: Anthony Frank Obeng, Yongyue Zhu. Data collection: Anthony Frank Obeng. Analysis and interpretation of results: Anthony Frank Obeng, Yongyue Zhu. Draft manuscript preparation: Anthony Frank Obeng, Yongyue Zhu. All authors reviewed the results and approved the final version of the manuscript.

Availability of Data and Materials: The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available and will be provided by the corresponding author if required.

Ethics Approval: The authors followed the Ethical Code of Conduct of the American Psychological Association (APA) to conduct this study. All research methods involving human participants align with the institutional research committee’s ethical standards, the 1964 Helsinki Statement, and its subsequent revisions or similar ethical standards.

Informed Consent: Informed consent was obtained from all the study participants.

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest to report regarding the present study.

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