Taiwan’s Foxconn is the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer, employing over one million, and supplying products to many major firms such as Apple and Dell. Starting in 2010, Foxconn drew considerable unwanted media (and research) attention because of a series of “sudden” suicides by workers in their massive south China production facilities (Xu, 2010). One reason given for this tragic and difficult state of affairs was that front-line production workers expected that a large and famous organization like Foxconn would treat them very well, with the reality turning out to be a lot different. Worker stress in China was thought to be increasing with the slowing of the economy and reduced labor flexibility (Bruton, Ahlstrom, & Si, 2015; Piazza, 2014). And Foxconn proved to be a very demanding employer – much different from the state firms or rural enterprises that many of its employees were accustomed to (Bruton, Peng, Ahlstrom, Stan, & Xu, 2015; Southern Weekly, 2010). In academic terms, they may have believed their psychological contracts were not fulfilled and it is likely that some workers became depressed or overwhelmed by the difficult and demanding electronics manufacturing work coupled with Foxconn’s unrelenting work rules and overtime requirements (Bloomberg News, 2012).

Psychological contracts are “individual beliefs shaped by the organization, regarding the terms of an exchange agreement between individuals and their organization” (Rousseau, 1995Rousseau, 1995: 9). When employees perceive that contracts are not fulfilled, psychological contract breach (PCB – a cognitive evaluation of the extent to which the employer does not fulfill its promises) occurs. Negative emotions such as anger are likely to follow which is in turn called psychological contract violation (PCV) (Morrison & Robinson, 1997), which can in turn be followed by other negative acts or impulsive acts such as those that happened at Foxconn (Parzefall & Coyle-Shapiro, 2011; Restubog, Zagenczyk, Bordia, Bordia, & Chapman, 2015). Thus, PCV is an emotional state that is mainly comprised of negative emotions such as anger, frustration and feelings of betrayal, which can lead to a number of negative behavioral and organizational outcomes (Porath & Erez, 2007; Restubog et al., 2015).

Several researchers (e.g. McFarlance & Tetrick, 1994; Rousseau, 1995) have applied the EVLN (i.e., Exit, Voice, Loyalty, and Neglect) modelto show likely behavioral responses of employees to PCV in a more systematic way. This model predicts that people may respond to difficult conditions in several different ways such as exiting the situation, voicing disagreements in an effort to change conditions, remaining loyal, and avoiding or neglecting the situation altogether (e.g. Lee & Jablin, 1992; Rusbult, Zembrodt, & Gunn, 1982; Rusbult, Farrell, Rogers, & Mainous, 1988).