A Stress Model of Psychological Contract Violation Among Ethnic Minority Employees

Objectives: Integrating the transactional theory of stress and coping and research on discrimination perception/attribution, we propose a stress model of psychological contract (PC) violation among ethnic minority employees. We argue that ethnic minority employees tend to appraise PC violation as a threat and attribute it to personal ethnic discrimination (as well as low organizational trustworthiness), which in turn leads ethnic minority employees to engage in fear-driven silence as a form of emotion-based withdrawal coping. Methods: We conducted two survey studies (Studies 1 and 2), an experimental study (Study 3), and a supplementary meta-analysis of the three studies. Results: We found support for our model. Ethnic minority employees’ perception of personal ethnic discrimination, rather than their perception of low organizational trustworthiness, translated PC violation to fear-driven silence. Our result patterns remained the same when we controlled for neuroticism and social desirability. Conclusions: By delineating ethnic minorities’ appraisal/attribution of and coping with PC violation, the current research advances the literatures on both PC and ethnic discrimination.