Although group-level abusive supervision has shown predictive power above and beyond individual-level abusive supervision, it remains underexamined, limiting both scholarly and practical understanding of its far-reaching impact in the workplace. This may be due to the inconsistency in theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches of group-level abusive supervision across studies, which has led to varying conceptualizations and findings. Thus, the aim of this research is to advance the understanding of group-level abusive supervision by providing a much-needed theoretical and empirical synthesis and investigation of the construct. Based on the 43 studies analyzed, our findings indicate that group-level abusive supervision exhibits stronger relationships with many outcomes compared to individual-level abusive supervision. Additionally, we found that the composition model used (referent shift consensus versus direct consensus) for group-level abusive supervision affected the strength of these relationships. Despite some limitations, such as sample size constraints for subgroup comparisons, our work underscores the critical importance of understanding abusive supervision at the group level and paves the way for future research on this important phenomenon.
