Supervisor Machiavellianism and Employee Quiet Quitting: The Mediating Role of Psychological Contract Breach and the Moderating Role of Perceived Social Support

Abstract

The present study was conducted to investigate the influence of supervisor Machiavellianism on employee quiet quitting through the mediating role of psychological contract breach and the moderating role of perceived social support among employees of Multan Electric Power Company (MEPCO), Pakistan. A quantitative research approach with a cross-sectional survey design was adopted to examine the proposed relationships among the study variables. Data were collected from 200 employees through a stratified random sampling technique. Standardized and validated research instruments were used to measure supervisor Machiavellianism, psychological contract breach, perceived social support and employee quiet quitting. Data analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 27 and SmartPLS software. The findings of the study were revealed that supervisor Machiavellianism significantly predicted psychological contract breach (β = 0.53, p = 0.000), while psychological contract breach significantly influenced employee quiet quitting behavior (β = 0.49, p = 0.000). Perceived social support was shown a significant negative relationship with employee quiet quitting (β = -0.25, p = 0.000). The moderation findings were further indicated that perceived social support weakened the positive relationship between psychological contract breach and employee quiet quitting (β = -0.13, p = 0.002). The mediation analysis was confirmed that psychological contract breach significantly mediated the relationship between supervisor Machiavellianism and employee quiet quitting (Effect = 0.26, CI = 0.17–0.37). The structural model assessment was shown satisfactory model fitness with R² values of 0.31 for psychological contract breach and 0.55 for employee quiet quitting. The study was concluded that manipulative supervisory behaviors indirectly promoted employee disengagement through breach perceptions, whereas strong social support reduced employees’ withdrawal tendencies and protected them from quiet quitting behaviors.