The Journal of general psychology
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Based on uncertainty management theory (Lind & Van den Bos, 2002; Van den Bos & Lind, 2002), we explored whether uncertainty in the workplace (role ambiguity) as well as off the workplace (economic hardship) moderates the relationship between abusive supervision and subordinates' job burnout. Using survey method, we obtained 458 valid responses from employees in a transportation company in Taiwan. ⋯ Abusive supervision related more strongly to job burnout when subordinates perceived higher role ambiguity (higher uncertainty) or higher economic hardship (higher uncertainty). As predicted, high uncertainty increases subordinates' attentions to the injustice from abusive supervision and thus strengthens the negative psychological consequences of abusive supervision, regardless of whether the source of uncertainty corresponds to the source of (in)justice perception.