心理契约违背与护理硕士新员工离职倾向：职业妥协的纵向中介作用——交叉滞后面板分析

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.

Sec. Organizational Psychology

• Second Affiliated Hospital, Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China

Abstract

Objective: To examine trajectories and temporal associations among psychological contract breach, career compromise and turnover intention in newly recruited Master of Nursing graduates, and to clarify the mediating role of career compromise. Methods: In this three-wave panel study, 295 Master of Nursing graduates newly recruited to 14 Chinese tertiary hospitals were assessed within the first month of employment (T1) and at 6 (T2) and 12 (T3) months. A cross-lagged panel model was fitted under maximum likelihood, with mediation tested by bootstrap (5,000 iterations). Results: All three variables increased significantly over 12 months (breach, 14.45 ± 2 2.26 to 15.90 ± 2.35; career compromise, 30.36 ± 5.74 to 34.75 ± 5.97; turnover intention, 15.24 ± 2.14 to 16.91 ± 2.36; all P < 0.001). The final model fitted well (χ²/df = 2.43, CFI = 0.985, TLI = 0.965, RMSEA = 0.022, SRMR = 0.036). Breach preceded later career compromise and turnover intention, and career compromise preceded later turnover intention (β = 0.16–0.26, all P < 0.01); all six reverse paths were small and non-significant (β = 0.04–0.08). Wald tests favoured the hypothesised direction in all six reciprocal pairs, but the difference was significant in only one (breach →career compromise, T1→T2: P = 0.049) and borderline in its T2→T3 counterpart (P = 0.060). One indirect pathway was significant: PCB(T1) →CC(T2) →TI(T3) = 0.25 × 0.21 = 0.053 (95% CI [0.032, 0.112]). A second pathway through compromise carried to T3 was not estimated: the within-wave association between compromise and intention is a residual covariance, not a directional path, and cannot enter an indirect effect. In the original metric this is about 0.08 point on the 6–24 intention scale, under 5% of the 1.67-point rise observed. Conclusion: Among newly recruited Master of Nursing graduates in Chinese tertiary hospitals, breach was longitudinally associated with higher turnover intention, partly through career compromise. Because the design is observational, these are temporal associations rather than causal effects, and the indirect effect is small. The findings identify a potentially modifiable early-career signal, not a basis for staffing policy; interventions on developmental promises merit controlled evaluation.

Keywords

中介效应, 交叉滞后模型, 心理契约违背, 护理硕士, 新入职员工, 离职倾向, 纵向研究, 职业妥协

Received

21 July 2026

Accepted

28 September 2026

Copyright

© 2026 Li, Yu, Peng, Miao and Song. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Hong Song

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