I Am So Tired… How Fatigue May Exacerbate Stress Reactions to Psychological Contract Breach.

Safâa Achnak,Yannick Griep,Tim Vantilborgh

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00231

Abstract

Previous research showed that perceptions of psychological contract (PC) breach have undesirable individual and organizational consequences. Surprisingly, the PC literature has paid little to no attention to the relationship between PC breach perceptions and stress. A better understanding of how PC breach may elicit stress seems crucial, given that stress plays a key role in employees' physical and mental well-being. Based on Conservation of Resources Theory, we suggest that PC breach perceptions represent a perceived loss of valued resources, subsequently leading employees to experience higher stress levels resulting from emerging negative emotions. Moreover, we suggest that this mediated relationship is moderated by initial levels of fatigue, due to fatigue lowering the personal resources necessary to cope with breach events. To tests our hypotheses, we analyzed the multilevel data we obtained from two experience sampling designs (Study 1: 51 Belgian employees; Study 2: 53 US employees). Note that the unit of analysis is “observations” rather than “respondents,” resulting in an effective sample size of 730 (Study 1) and 374 (Study 2) observations. In both studies, we found evidence for the mediating role of negative emotions in the PC breach—stress relationship. In the second study, we also found evidence for the moderating role of fatigue in the mediated PC breach—stress relationship. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Highlights

The psychological contract (PC) forms the foundation of the employee—employer relationship because it encompasses beliefs about reciprocal obligations between employees and their employer based on explicit and implicit promises (Rousseau, 2001)
[i.e., negative emotions and stress load onto one latent factor; PC breach and fatigue each load onto a separate latent factor; χ2(3) = 195.59, p < 0.001], alternative model B [i.e., PC breach and negative emotions load onto one latent factor; stress and fatigue each load onto a separate latent factor; χ2(21) = 1927.30, p < 0.001], and alternative model C [i.e., PC breach, negative emotions, stress, and fatigue load onto one single latent factor; χ2(6) = 571.69, p < 0.001] fit the data significantly worse
This means that stress, akin to several attitudinal and behavioral outcomes, is more likely to increase following negative emotions resulting from PC breach

Summary

Introduction

The psychological contract (PC) forms the foundation of the employee—employer relationship because it encompasses beliefs about reciprocal obligations between employees and their employer based on explicit and implicit promises (Rousseau, 2001). An arguably more interesting component of the PC pertains to the fact that employees often perceive that their organization failed to fulfill one or more obligations, leading them to experience a PC breach and negative emotions following this PC breach (Morrison and Robinson, 1997). Research has shown that the prevalence of PC breach is quite high, with employees perceiving PC breach at least once a week (Conway and Briner, 2002). Based on Conservation of Resources Theory (COR; Hobfoll, 1989), stress

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