Furlough Status: The Effects of Contract Breach, Violation, and Perceived Organizational Support

The current study, we design to address the effect of furlough status on employees' attitudes and well-being after returning to their previous employment status. Specifically, we suggest that the two constructs - psychological contract breach and violation - mediated the associations between the employees’ furlough status and emotional exhaustion and affective commitment. Additionally, we propose that perceived organizational support attenuated the association between employment status and employees contract breach perception. A cross-sectional study conducted at two points in time – during the first lockdown and four months after the lockdown (N=336), confirmed the study hypotheses and supported the predicted indirect sequential associations. However, perceived organizational support served to buffer the association between employment status and perceived psychological contract breach only in the case of employees who continued to work during the lockdown period.