Crossing the border of normality: How and why supervisory control actions engender distrust and loss of control effectiveness

This study challenges and complements extant control research by focusing on the under-attended relation between control and distrust, and by studying this relation from the perspective of controlees. We conducted non-directive interviews with 14 non-managerial employees who had developed distrust of their supervisor, inviting them to retrospectively make sense of their process of distrust development. We studied how and why supervisory control affects subordinates’ distrust of supervisors, how and why subordinates react to their distrust, and which consequences for control effectiveness ensue. Our study provided specifications of distrust-triggering supervisory actions, reactions of subordinates, and causes of control effectiveness loss. Theoretically, the findings could be understood using personal and compensatory control theory, pointing at loss of resources needed to attain valued goals as main triggers of distrust of supervisors, and theorizing about action-outcome structures of subordinates that are threatened by supervisory actions that cross the border of normal supervisory behavior.