Structural relationship among airline cabin crew’s psychological contract violations, organizational silence, and organizational commitment: Focusing on multi-group analysis of LMX

This study aims to investigate the structural relationships among airline cabin crews' psychological contract violations, organizational silence, and organizational commitment as well as the moderating effect of leader-member exchange (LMX) within these relationships. To this end, a survey was conducted targeting airline cabin crews from both low-cost carriers and full-service carriers. The results indicated that psychological contract violations had a significant and positive effect on organizational silence. Additionally, both transactional and relational psychological contract violations—that constitute psychological contract violations—negatively influenced organizational commitment. Organizational silence also had a significant negative effect on organizational commitment. Furthermore, the results of the multi-group analysis revealed that airline cabin crews who perceived a more negative LMX relationship state, in comparison to the high LMX group, showed more substantial path coefficients between psychological contract violations and organizational silence and between psychological contract violations and organizational commitment. Based on these findings, several practical implications are suggested, including the need to improve the cabin crew personnel evaluation and salary systems, to ensure stable employment security, to foster an organizational culture that encourages open communication, and to emphasize the critical role of leadership in strengthening organizational commitment.