CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.7 Results Analysis and Discussion
difference test between the base and constrained models was significant（χ2(39) = 316.265, P<0.05), indicating a significant difference between the two cohorts in setting the factor loadings all + measurement intercept + structural covariance + measurement residual all equal model.
To sum up, through the group analysis of SEM model, gradually set measurement weights, measurement concepts, structural weights, structural covariances, structural residuals and measurement residuals on the basis of unrestricted model, and compare SEM groups, it is found that there are significant differences in the relationship between psychological contract violation and employees' anti productive behavior between China and Thailand.
Hypothesis The path China Thailand
H3d NC <-- TR NO SUPPORT SUPPORT
H3e ICWB <-- TR SUPPORT SUPPORT
H4a OCWB <-- AC SUPPORT SUPPORT
H4b ICWB <-- AC SUPPORT SUPPORT
H5a OCWB <-- CC SUPPORT NO SUPPORT
H5b ICWB <-- CC SUPPORT NO SUPPORT
H6a OCWB <-- NC SUPPORT SUPPORT
H6b ICWB <-- NC SUPPORT SUPPORT
H7 DE---AC--- OCWB SUPPORT NO SUPPORT
H8 RE---AC-- OCWB SUPPORT SUPPORT
H9 TR---AC--- OCWB NO SUPPORT SUPPORT
H10 DE---AC--- ICWB SUPPORT NO SUPPORT
H11 RE---AC--- ICWB SUPPORT SUPPORT
H12 TR---AC--- ICWB NO SUPPORT SUPPORT
H13 DE---CC--- OCWB SUPPORT NO SUPPORT
H14 RE---CC--- OCWB SUPPORT SUPPORT
H15 TR---CC--- OCWB SUPPORT SUPPORT
H16 DE---CC--- ICWB SUPPORT NO SUPPORT
H17 RE---CC--- ICWB SUPPORT NO SUPPORT
H18 TR---CC--- ICWB SUPPORT NO SUPPORT
H19 DE---NC--- OCWB NO SUPPORT NO SUPPORT
H20 RE---NC---OCWB NO SUPPORT SUPPORT
H21 TR---NC---OCWB NO SUPPORT SUPPORT
H22 DE---NC---ICWB NO SUPPORT NO SUPPORT
H23 RE---NC---ICWB NO SUPPORT SUPPORT
H24 TR---NC---ICWB NO SUPPORT SUPPORT
4.7.2 Analysis and Discussion of Psychological Contract Violation Affecting Counterproductive Work Behavior
In exploring the impact of psychological contract violations on counterproductive work behavior, this study proposes six hypotheses, H1a, H1e, H2a, H2e, H3a, H3e. After regression analysis, in the Chinese sample, all six hypotheses are supported, whereas in the Thai sample, five hypotheses are supported and one hypothesis is not supported (the effect of the development dimension on interpersonal oriented counterproductive work behaviors is not significant).
Thus, the significant positive impact of psychological contract violations on counterproductive work behaviors is verified, which is consistent with Turnley and Feldman (1999) study's conclusion that a firm does not fulfill a psychological contract or that an employee perceives psychological contract violations, and that an employee will experience negative feelings that lead to an employee's reprisal or harm organizational stakeholders' behavior. The extent of psychological contract violation is an important influencing factor for employees' counterproductive work behavior, i.e. when employees perceive that the enterprise has not fulfilled their responsibilities and obligations, or that the enterprise has not fulfilled its commitments to employees, employees will be disappointed with the organization, generate negative emotions such as anger and anger, which will lead to counterproductive work behavior.
Analyzing the paths from the impacts of the three dimensions of psychological contract violation on the two dimensions of counterproductive work behavior, as for Chinese employees, the relationship dimension, the transaction dimension as well as the development dimension have significant positive impacts on organization oriented counterproductive work behavior, H1a, H2a, H3a are supported; H1e, H2e, and H3e are supported by the significant positive effects of the transaction and relationship dimensions on the interpersonal oriented counterproductive work behavior related to the relationship dimension, the transaction dimension, and the development dimension, which are consistent with Ma et al. (2019) conclusion that psychological contract violations have a significant impact on organizational oriented counterproductive work behavior and interpersonal oriented counterproductive work behavior. This conclusion illustrates that the higher the level of breach in the three dimensions of the psychological contract, the more likely the employee is to
experience actions that disrupt the organization and harm coworkers, specifically when the employee perceives that the organization cannot provide the employee with a stable job as well as an ideal working atmosphere and working relationship. For example: an employee's perception that at work, coworkers are unfriendly, the job does not get the identity of the parent, the organization does not take any steps to stabilize the employee relationship, a poor corporate culture, and the organization's extremely tough attitude toward the employee will make the employee extremely mentally bad, thinking that the organization is unfair and bad, argue that they have suffered unfair treatment such as deception and exploitation, thereby reprisal from the organization, which implements counterproductive work behavior. For the violation of psychological contract in the transaction dimension, employees are often affected by enterprise policy documents, commitments of organizational agents and corporate culture, and will fantasize about an ideal working state, such as paid leave, employee overtime benefits, employee life security, etc. once employees perceive that there is a big gap between ideal and reality, employees will feel unfair, they think that their efforts have not been rewarded and the organization has not fulfilled its initial commitments, so they are disappointed with the organization, resulting in negative attitudes and behaviors. For the psychological contract violation of the development dimension, when employees perceive that the organization does not provide employees with development platforms and opportunities, employees can not be promoted in the organization and career planning can not be guaranteed. For example:
an employee has no opportunity to learn or training for the employee is not required by the employee, the organization places low emphasis on talents, the organization's usership is unjustified, such that an employee perceives that remaining in the organization will not achieve his or her own worth and accomplishment of the job, will place distrust on the organization, a portion of the employee will opt out of the organization, while a portion will reprisal for the organization, examples include:
bootlegging and selling company customer information as well as confidential documents, taking away organizational core customer materials or core technologies.
For Thai employees, the three dimensions violated by psychological contract have no significant impact on interpersonal-oriented counterproductive work behavior, so H1e is not supported, and other dimensions have significant impact on counterproductive
work behavior, so H1a, H2a, H3a, H2e and H3e are supported, it shows that the psychological contract violation of the development dimension has little impact on the counterproductive work behavior of Thai employees. This conclusion is consistent with that of Swierczek and Onishi (2003) study, that is, Thai employees do not have high appeal and expectation of career development and do not have much requirement for their own learning, promotion of position, and achievement of their job, which may also be influenced by the Thai culture, a general class of Thailanders who are easy to be satisfied with the current situation, do not have much ambition and pursuit for the accomplishment of the individual.
In conclusion, violation of the three dimensions of psychological contract have significant positive effects on counterproductive work behaviors of Chinese employees, while for Thai employees, the dimension of development has no significant impact on counterproductive work behaviors of Thai employees.
Psychological contract violation of transaction dimension and relationship dimension has significant impact on employees' counterproductive work behavior.
4.7.3 Analysis and Discussion on the Impact of Psychological Contract Violation on Organizational Commitment
In exploring the impact of psychological contract violations on organizational commitment, 9 hypotheses are proposed in this study, which partially hold after regression analysis. In the Chinese sample, H1b, H4a, H2c, H3b, and H3c were supported, but H1d, H3b, H2d, and H3d were not, among Chinese employees, psychological contract violations in the development dimension had a significant negative effect on affective commitment as well as on continuance commitment, whereas psychological contract violations in the development dimension had no significant effect on normative commitment, which is consistent with the findings of Freese and Schalk (1996), that is the higher levels of psychological contract violation reduce employee commitment to the organization and affect employee loyalty and retention to the organization. This part validates the research conclusions of S. Ma and J. Gong (2013), and the impact of Psychological Contract Dimension of development dimension on normative commitment has not been verified. The likely explanation is that normative commitment is an employee's own constraint and is a
manifestation of the employee's social responsibility and professional ethics, and that Chinese employees, when they perceive a breach of the psychological contract in the development dimension, do not let employees breach social responsibility as well as break through the professional ethics bottom line, but affect employee emotions about the organization and their willingness to remain in the organization. In the Thai sample, H1b, H1c and H1d were not supported, H2b, H2c, H2d, H3b, H3c, H3d were supported. Among Thai employees, the psychological contract violation in the development dimension had no significant effect on affective commitment, continuance commitment as well as normative commitment, a conclusion totally unsupported by the study of S. Ma and J. Gong (2013), a possible explanation is that, because of the influence of personal values among Thai employees, the promotion of development and profession is not an element valued by Thai employees. A relaxed and free employment environment is only the primary consideration for employee selection in Thailand (Bunchapattanasakda & Wong, 2010), so even if the organization does not give them the opportunity to learn to improve or offer job increases, it will not affect the job behaviors of Thai employees, and Thai employees will not experience dissatisfaction or negativity with the organization for this purpose, or the option to leave the organization. Therefore, a psychological contract violation in the development dimension would not affect the organizational commitment of Thai employees.
4.7.4 Analysis and Discussion on the Impact of Organizational Commitment on Counterproductive Work Behavior
In this study of the effects of organizational commitment on counterproductive work behaviors, six hypotheses were proposed, and the results of empirical analysis show that, in the Chinese sample, H4a, H4b, H5a, H5b, H6a and H6b are supported, indicating that each dimension of organizational commitment has significant effects on all dimensions of Chinese employees' counterproductive work behaviors. In the Thai sample, H5a and H5b were not supported, but H4a, H6a, H4b and H6b were supported, indicating that in Thailand, continuous commitment had no significant impact on counterproductive work behavior. This research concludes by compensating for the promotion of positive work behaviors by organizational
commitment alone in the current research (Tan & Akhtar, 1998; Zayas-Ortiz et al., 2015), further exploring the relationship between organizational commitment and counterproductive work behaviors. Research shows that for Chinese employees, organizational commitment has an inhibitory effect on employee counterproductive work behaviors, whereas for Thai employees, affective commitment and normative commitment have an inhibitory effect on counterproductive work behaviors, except that continuous commitment has no effect on counterproductive work behaviors. The possible explanation is that due to the influence of Thai law, Thai employees have low employment pressure, relaxed life and are satisfied with the current situation.
Therefore, Thai employees have less work pressure and may tend to consider personal interests as the primary factor when weighing work interests and personal interests, so Thai employees will not sacrifice personal interests (e.g. leaving) to keep their jobs.
Secondly, Thai employees do not have a strong level of continuous commitment, so there is no necessary correlation between continuous commitment and Thai employees' counterproductive work behavior.
4.7.5 Analysis and Discussion on the Mediating Role of Organizational Commitment
When discussing the mediating effect of organizational commitment, this study put forward 18 hypotheses, H7-H24, and empirical analysis results show that in the Chinese sample, H9, H12, and H19-H24 are not supported, H7, H8, H10, H11 and H14-H18 are supported. Among Chinese employees, affective commitment has no mediating effect in the relationship between transaction dimension psychological contract violation and interpersonal-oriented counterproductive work behavior, nor in the relationship between transaction dimension psychological contract violation and organization-oriented counterproductive work behavior. Normalized commitment has no mediating effect on the relationship between the dimensions of psychological contract violation and employees' counterproductive work behavior. The possible explanation is that the affective commitment of employees to the organization stems from the identification of the organization's culture and the emotional adherence to the organization, and if the more highly valued the psychological contract of the dimensions of the transaction, such as material properties such as income and welfare,
then the organizational commitment belongs to the short-term commitment, and the employee work behavior is largely unaffected by the affective commitment, more so acting on behavior as influenced by personal constraints and interests. In addition, due to the large population and high employment pressure in China, Chinese employees can voluntarily and consciously abide by the enterprise's system and professional rules in the workplace. Therefore, Chinese people have a higher professional quality and will not be easily shaken and affected. In the Thai sample, H7, H10, H13, H16- H19, and H22 were not supported. affective commitment has no mediating effect on the relationship between development dimension psychological contract violation and employees' counterproductive work behavior. Continuous commitment plays no intermediary role in the relationship between psychological contract violations and interpersonal-oriented employees' counterproductive work behavior. Normalized commitment does not play an intermediary role in the relationship between the violation of psychological contract in the development dimension and each dimension of employees' counterproductive work behavior. The possible explanation is that Thai employees are less concerned about personal development and tend to maintain working relationships, so the development dimension of psychological contract does not affect Thai employees' affective commitment to the organization. Whereas for Thai employees, because Thai employees are protected by the law of their own state labor and are under less pressure for employment, employees tend not to abandon their personal interests because they want to maintain a job and, therefore, ongoing commitment does not play a mediating role in Thai employees' work behaviors.
However, if Thai employees perceive breach of the psychological contract, which may affect their normative commitment to the organization, for example, employees may leave abruptly without various leave days, this conclusion, which explores the mediating effect of organizational commitment in the relationship of psychological contract violation and employee counterproductive work behavior, also supports the research hypothesis. The results show that there are significant differences between Chinese and Thai employees, that psychological contract violation does not affect the impact of the normative commitment of Chinese employees and, in turn, that psychological contract violation does not affect the continuing commitment of Thai employees and has no impact on employee counterproductive work behavior.
4.7.6 Analysis and Discussion on Employee Differences in Chinese-Thai Enterprises
Comparison between the two cohorts of Chinese and Thai employees revealed significant differences between Chinese and Thai employees in the measured and affected relationships of the dimensions of psychological contract violation, organizational commitment, and counterproductive work behavior.
From the impact path analysis of each dimension of psychological contract violation on each dimension of counterproductive work behavior, violation of the three dimensions of psychological contract has a significant positive impact on Chinese employees' counterproductive work behavior. For Thai employees, the psychological contract violation between the transaction dimension and the relationship dimension has a significant effect on employee counterproductive work behavior, while the Psychological Contract Dimension of the development dimension does not have a significant effect on the interpersonal oriented counterproductive work behavior of Thai employees, therefore, Chinese workers pay more attention to the development type of psychological contract compared to Thai employees.
Compared with Chinese employees, Thai employees pay more attention to the relationship type psychological contract, this conclusion partly confirms that J. C.
Chen et al. (2006) study concludes that, cross culturally, there are significant differences among employees of different nationalities, but Chen study concludes that compared with us employees, Chinese employees pay more attention to the relationship type psychological contract, obviously, this is inconsistent with the conclusion of this study, also illustrates that there may also be differences between Thai employees and US employees.
Through the path analysis of each dimension of psychological contract violation to each dimension of organizational commitment. Among Chinese employees, the psychological contract violation of the development dimension had no significant effect on normative commitment, whereas among Thai employees, the psychological contract violation of the development dimension had no significant effect on affective commitment, continuance commitment, as well as normative commitment, thus, Chinese workers pay more attention to personal development at work than Thai employees, a conclusion that confirms Hu (2014), I.e., she argues that
Thai employees place more emphasis on family as well as individual quality of life, and there is a large discrepancy in the work values with the Chinese proposing to place collective interests in the first place and personal interests in the last place.
Through the path analysis of the impact of various dimensions of organizational commitment on counterproductive work behavior, each dimension of Chinese employees' organizational commitment has a significant impact on all dimensions of Chinese employees' counterproductive work behavior, while the continuous commitment of Thai employees has no significant impact on counterproductive work behavior. Therefore, compared with Thai employees, Chinese employees' continuous commitment to the organization is stronger.
Through the intermediary path analysis of organizational commitment, affective commitment has no intermediary effect on the relationship between psychological contract violation in transaction dimension and interpersonal orientation of counterproductive work behavior among Chinese employees. affective commitment has no mediating effect on the relationship between violation of psychological contract in transaction dimension and organizational-oriented counterproductive work behavior. Normalized commitment has no mediating effect on the relationship between dimensions of psychological contract violation and employees' counterproductive work behavior. In the Thai sample, affective commitment had no mediating effect on the relationship between development dimension psychological contract violation and employee counterproductive work behavior. Continuous commitment plays no intermediary role in the relationship between psychological contract violations and interpersonal-oriented employees' counterproductive work behavior. Normalized commitment does not play an intermediary role in the relationship between the violation of psychological contract in the development dimension and each dimension of employees' counterproductive work behavior. Therefore, the violation of psychological contract will not affect the impact of Chinese employees' normative commitment, and then affect employees' counterproductive work behavior. The violation of psychological contract will not affect Thai employees' continuous commitment, and has no impact on employees' counterproductive work behavior.