The Relationship Between Psychological Contract Breach and Employees' Counterproductive Work Behaviors: The Mediating Effect of Organizational Cynicism and Work Alienation.

Shuang Li,Yang Chen

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01273

Abstract

Psychological contract breach (PCB) may trigger negative attitudes in employees and ultimately cause further negative behaviors. By drawing on social exchange theory, this study aims to explore the link between PCB and counterproductive work behavior (CWB) by focusing on the mediating role of organizational cynicism and work alienation. We administered a cross-sectional survey of 484 energy company front-line employees. The conceptual model was examined via structural equation modeling. The results suggested that organizational cynicism and work alienation sequentially mediated the relationship between PCB and CWB. This study elucidated the mechanisms underlying the relationship between PCB and CWB by introducing negative attitudes (i.e., organizational cynicism and work alienation) into the model, and offered further evidence that organizations should pay more attention to employees’ PCB and negative attitudes in order to reduce their CWB.

Highlights

In the past few decades, researchers have examined counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs)
We demonstrated that the link between Psychological contract breach (PCB) and CWB was sequentially mediated by organizational cynicism and work alienation (β = 0.071, p < 0.01)
Through analysis and comparison between our hypothetical model and alternative models, we found that the relationship of PCB with CWB was mediated by work alienation and organizational cynicism respectively

Summary

Introduction

In the past few decades, researchers have examined counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) These behaviors have been labeled differently in different studies, such as organizational misbehavior (Vardi and Wiener, 1996), workplace deviance (Robinson and Bennett, 1997), workplace aggression (Neuman and Baron, 2005), and antisocial behavior (Robinson and O’LearyKelly, 1998). All of these behaviors were defined differently, but they share the common theme of being voluntary acts harming or intending to harm organizations and their members (Giacalone and Greenberg, 1997; Spector and Fox, 2005). The latter is oriented toward the organization and involves behaviors such as theft, sabotage, absenteeism, and safety procedure violations (Bennett and Robinson, 2000; Spector, 2005; Hystad et al, 2014; Cohen, 2016)

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