Straight up, now tell me: Is abusive supervision equivalent across gender and age?

Purpose – Different groups may have different standards for what constitutes abusive supervision and may interpret instances of abusive supervision differently. Without knowledge of measurement equivalence between gender or age groups, aggregated mean scores of abusive supervision across groups (e.g. men and women) can be misleading. Further, accurate comparisons between groups of interest (e.g. men versus women) become challenging because group differences may at least partially reflect measurement artifacts rather than true differences. Thus, the purpose of this study is to assess the measurement equivalence of abusive supervision across gender and age groups, with the aim to inform theoretical implications about and practical interventions geared toward mitigating gender and age differences in abusive supervision. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing from a mega data set of 101 independent samples that provided 34, 004 individual responses about subordinates’ perceptions of abusive supervision and using multilevel factor mixture models, the authors assessed measurement equivalence of the five-item active abusive supervision measure across gender and age groups. Findings – The study results supported configural equivalence for both gender (women versus men) and age (under 40 versus 40 and older), which indicates that the unidimensional factor structure holds regardless of group membership. However, the authors did not find evidence for metric equivalence, which indicates that the factor loadings of the five items were not equivalent across gender or age groups. Originality/value – Group differences in abusive supervision are not so straightforward as “more” or “less” but may, in part, reflect underlying differences in how men and women, and likewise older and younger employees, interpret and experience abusive supervision behaviors. Future scholars are encouraged to delve into the source of the measurement nonequivalence, which can inform theory building about the antecedents and consequences of abusive supervision and aid practitioners in targeted interventions. In the meantime, a lack of measurement equivalence indicates that scholars should proceed with caution when making comparisons between these nonequivalent groups, and that organizational policies and procedures aimed at reducing the incidence and impact of abusive supervision cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach.