The Hidden Cost of Abusive Supervision: Rudeness, Sabotage, and Ethics

Course overview

Course Description: This course examines the mechanisms through which abusive supervision in healthcare settings contributes to negative employee behaviors that directly impact patient care. Participants will explore how hostile supervisory conduct triggers workplace rudeness, how rudeness escalates to patient-directed service sabotage, and how individual work ethics can moderate this harmful progression. Drawing on Social Exchange Theory (SET), the course presents empirical findings from a study of 305 hospital nurses and applies structural equation modeling results to real-world clinical leadership challenges. Practical implications for reducing service sabotage through leadership development, ethics training, and organizational policy are addressed throughout. This course on abusive supervision and its effects on healthcare workplace behavior is designed for social workers, professional counselors, psychologists, nurses, and substance abuse counselors, who do clinical work. This course is appropriate for intermediate and advanced level practitioners who wish to develop or increase their knowledge of abusive supervision, workplace rudeness, work ethics, and patient-directed service sabotage. It may also be useful for licensed clinicians who require continuing education courses for license renewal. Authors: Guo, Cheng, Zaigham Learning Objectives: This course will provide a professional with detailed information about abusive supervision and its consequences in healthcare settings. Specifically, the practitioner will: 1. Define abusive supervision and explain how Social Exchange Theory accounts for the relationship between abusive supervisory behavior and workplace rudeness. 2. Describe the mediating role of workplace rudeness in the pathway from abusive supervision to patient-directed service sabotage. 3. Identify how employee work ethics moderate the relationship between workplace rudeness and patient-directed service sabotage. Citation: Guo, D., Cheng, J., & Zaigham, G. H. K. (2024). The hidden cost of abusive supervision: Rudeness, sabotage, and ethics. BMC Psychology, 12, 627.