A Study On The Mechanisms Of Psychological Contract Violation Impacts On Employee Behavioral Options

Psychological contract theory has the significant contribution in understandingthe relations between employee and organization（Thomas et al., Aaron,2003；Cohen,2012）. As the core elements of understanding employee attitudes and behaviors（Neil Conway et al.,2002）, back in1990’s, this theory has received extensiveattention in western academia （Robinson et al.，1994，1995，1996；Hiltrop，1995；Morrison et al.，1997；Turnley et al.，1998；Rousseau，1999）. Psychological contracttheory is an important theoretical framework of employment relationship. In the past30years, lots of empirical studies show that: psychological contract violation（namely,employees thought organization did not fully perform its responsibility）phenomenongenerally exists in contemporary organizations （Susannna Lo,2003）. Psychologicalcontract violation will destroy the foundation of employment relationship, whenemployees perceive organizational not fully fulfill the responsibility, will directlyreduce their job satisfaction, and then take the corresponding behavioral option. So,researchers and administrators should know the mechanism of them, but the presentresearch little attention.Employees’ reaction for job dissatisfaction is one of the most important subjectsin organization behavior area；any organization is difficult to always guarantee thehigh job satisfaction （Rusbult,1988）. The behavior choice for job dissatisfaction isan inevitable topic in today’s human resources management practice. Employeebehavioral options （namely exit, voice, loyalty, neglect）, directly affects theorganization’s daily operation, even organization’s future and competitive advantage.Researchers generally believe that the term of "behavioral option"（EVLN model）ismost appropriate to descript employees’ different choose strategies when faceorganizational issues（Dan Farrell,1988；Hagedoorn,1999；Hsin-Hua Hsiung et al.,2012；Steven Li Si&Yi,2012）. However, the current study on psychological contract violation and jobdissatisfaction, job dissatisfaction and employee behavioral options, is just partial, notform a integration study of psychological contract violation-job satisfaction-employee behavioral options, and seldom consider the situational influences betweenthese variables, system reveal the relationship and mechanism of them.In addition, in the workplace, employees suffer psychological contract violation,have to face two problems: one is the practical problem of the work itself；the other isthe relationship with the direct leadership.A practical problem of the work itself refers to employees facing some factors oforganization organizations and community, which make the staff too attached orembedded in their work to leave. Mitchell（2001）validated the relationship of jobembeddedness and employees’ work behavior and attitude, showed the former has astrong predictive power to the latter.The relationship with the direct leadership, usually use the term "leader-memberexchange （LMX）". Marjo Riitta Parzefall （2010） pointed out that the employer’sagent may minimize the negative effects of psychological contract violation. Theemployer’s agent is not limited to middle and senior managers, shareholders, LMXmay moderate this negative effects.Therefore, in view of the above problems, on basic research literature andexploratory research, this study established a mediating path model of " psychologicalcontract violation-job satisfaction-employee behavioral options" and the total effectmoderation model, respectively discusses the moderating effect of job embeddednessand LMX.Through in-depth interviews of10employees and783questionnaires, integrateand test the theory model. The main conclusions are:（1） psychological contractviolation has a significant positive effect for exit and neglect, a negative effect onloyalty, but has nothing to do with voice；（2） job satisfaction is a fully mediated rolebetween psychological contract violation and exit and loyalty；（3） usingBootstrapping test the significance of moderating effect, finding job embeddedness isa partial moderating role on the positive effects between psychological contractviolation, job satisfaction to exit；there are significant differences on indirect effects ofjob embeddedness, namely psychological contract violation lead to job satisfactiondecrease, low job satisfaction lead to exit, job embeddedness has an indirectly negative moderating effect in this relationship；（4）job embeddedness is also a partialmoderating role on between psychological contract violation, job satisfaction toloyalty；there are significant differences on indirect effects of job embeddedness,namely psychological contract violation lead to job satisfaction decrease, low jobsatisfaction lead to low loyalty, job embeddedness has an indirectly negativemoderating effect in this relationship.（5） using Bootstrapping test the significanceof moderating effect, finding LMX is a partial moderating role between psychologicalcontract violation.Psychological contract violation has a direct effect on exit behavior,buffering effect of LMX is limited；（6）LMX plays a significant negative moderatingeffect in the path “psychological contract violation-job satisfaction-loyalty”.The theoretical contributions of this study are:（1）tests the effect psychologicalcontract violation on employee’s behavioral options；（2）identifies the mechanismbetween psychological contract violation and employee’s behavioral options；（3）explores the contingency factors between psychological contract violation andemployee’s behavioral options.This study also provides some inspiration to management:（1）Enterprise operators should have a profound understanding that humanresource is the most valuable wealth of the organization, and enhance the managementlevel, to pass a clear organizational responsibility to employees, beware of spreadingfalse information and superlatives. Then, control the source of psychological contract,employee, make an unify of training, organizational culture, management system andother aspects, especially to pay attention to the standardization of employeehandbook.（2）Managers shall take regular job satisfaction survey to maintain goodemployment relationship. When psychological contract violation cases exist, how toimprove employee job satisfaction through other appropriate measures, is importantmean to reduces the negative behavior and improve employee loyalty.（3）Job embeddedness provides a new perspective for the human resourcemanagement. The distinction between job satisfaction and organizational commitment,attending to the degree of individual and work’ embedding from the aspects oforganizational, community and other objective factors.（4）Support line manager take part function of human resources management. The concept of human resources management should be further organized at all levelsof management, the relationship between direct managers and subordinates are veryimportant, pay special attention to the core talents, LMX improves the effect onpsychological contract violation to exit in a certain degree, and enhance employeeloyalty.