The mediating role of emotional labor in the effect of psychological contract violation on counterproductive work behaviors

Since psychological contracts are based on mutual trust and expectations between the manager and employee, when they are violated, they cause many negative situations for managers and employees in businesses. Among these negative situations, there are counter-productive work behaviors and emotional labor that affect the business and employees. It has been determined that employees who perceive a psychological contract violation are more likely to display counter-productive work behaviors that harm the business and hide their true emotions while performing their duties. The concept of emotional labor is of great importance to increase the performance of employees and to display their emotions as they wish. In this study, psychological contract violation, counter-productive work behavior's sub-dimensions, and emotional labor's sub-dimensions are examined in general, and within the scope of the research, the relationship between the perception of non-compliance with psychological contract violation and the feeling of psychological contract violation with the research variables are investigated. The effect of the perception of non-compliance with psychological contract violation and the feeling of psychological contract violation on employees' counterproductive work behaviors and emotional labor is examined on a mediation model. For this purpose, cross-sectional data is collected from 457 participants who work at public university by using the Psychological Contract Violation Scale, Counterproductive Work Behavior Scale and Emotional Labor Scale. Quantitative analyses are applied to test the research hypotheses. As a result of the analyses, it was seen that emotional labor had a mediating role in the effect of psychological contract violation on counterproductive work behaviors. Key Words: Psychological Contract Violation, Counterproductive Work Behaviors, Emotional Labor