Do job satisfaction and work engagement mediate the effects of psychological contract breach and abusive supervision on hotel employees’ life satisfaction?

Abstract

ABSTRACT The current study draws on conservation of resources theory to examine the mediating roles of job satisfaction, and work engagement in the effects of psychological contract breach and abusive supervision on life satisfaction. Using a time lag of five months, a two-wave data were gathered from 274 full‒time frontline employees working in 4–5 star hotels in Accra in Ghana. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. The results demonstrated that psychological contract breach negatively influenced frontline employees’ life satisfaction. However, abusive supervision was not significantly related to frontline employees’ life satisfaction. Furthermore, job satisfaction and work engagement fully mediated the relationship of abusive supervision and psychological contract breach with life satisfaction. This is the first study which demonstrates that psychological contract breach can foster hotel employees’ life satisfaction, and identifies job satisfaction and work engagement as mechanisms through which psychological contract breach and abusive supervision predict life satisfaction.