New research highlights the role of compassion in helping employees manage broken promises at work. The study, conducted by researchers from North Carolina State University and James Madison University, suggests that compassionate individuals are more resilient, perform better, and are less likely to leave their jobs when they perceive a breach of promise by their employer.
Tom Zagenczyk, co-author of the paper and professor at North Carolina State University’s Poole College of Management, states, “People often equate compassion with weakness or softness, but this work underscores the ways in which compassion actually makes people resilient – and how that can affect their behavior in the workplace.”
The concept under investigation is psychological contract breach (PCB), which occurs when employees feel their employer has not fulfilled a promise. Examples include unmet expectations for raises or unexpected changes in company missions.
Sara Krivacek, first author of the paper and assistant professor at James Madison University, notes that while much research focuses on organizational responses to PCB, less attention has been given to employee traits. “We wanted to see how compassion may affect the way people cope with PCB in the workplace,” she says.
The study involved three surveys of white-collar workers in the Netherlands during the pandemic. This timing allowed researchers to isolate individual traits due to reduced peer interaction. Surveys measured experiences of PCB, violation feelings like anger or betrayal, levels of self- and other-compassion, job performance intentions to leave, and emotional exhaustion.
Krivacek explains that violation feelings drive negative outcomes such as emotional exhaustion but adds that compassion influences these effects differently. Higher self-compassion correlates with reduced emotional exhaustion despite violation feelings. Other-compassion relates to lower turnover intentions and better job performance.
Zagenczyk adds that higher other-compassion reduces slacking off or quitting even when employers act poorly. Krivacek suggests organizations could foster compassion through training programs or consider hiring compassionate candidates where skills are comparable.
The findings are detailed in “Softening the Blow: The Mitigating Effect of Compassion on the Negative Consequences of Psychological Contract Breach and Violation Feelings,” published in the Journal of Business Ethics. Co-authors include Yannick Griep from Samergo and North-West University and Kevin Cruz from Georgia Southern University.
