The Development of Psychological Contract Breach and Violation: a Longitudinal Study (original) (raw)
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The Development of Psychological Contract Breach and Violation
2006
This study attempts to integrate social exchange and psychological contract theory by examining how the quality of an individual's relationship with the overall organization (POS) and his or her leader (LMX) moderate the relation between perceptions of contract breach and feelings of violation. We hypothesized that relationship quality (captured by POS and LMX) would be negatively related to perceptions of contract breach and would moderate the relationship between contract breach and violation. We also hypothesized that contract violation would be negatively related to affective commitment and trust in the organization, and positively related to intent to leave. Finally, we predicted that feelings of violation would mediate the effects of contract breach on these work outcomes. Using a longitudinal survey from 159 employees, our results suggest that POS and LMX at Time 1 are negatively related to perceptions of contract breach at Time 2. POS at Time 1 moderated the relationship between contract breach and violation at Time 2. Perceived violation was negatively related to affective commitment and trust in the organization, and positively related to intent to leave at Time 2. Violation fully mediated the effects of contract breach on affective commitment and trust in the organization and partially mediated the effect of contract breach on intent to leave. The findings suggest that psychological contract breach can be viewed as an event (or series of events) that occurs within the context of the relationship an individual develops with agents and the overall organization.
Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 2014
This research investigated how much and in what direction newcomer psychological contracts changed during the first year of employment and the extent to which change was a function of a psychological contract breach. These issues were investigated using a sample of 88 organizational newcomers with diverse job duties/titles, prior experience, and age levels. Newcomers were surveyed at three points in time during the first year of employment, including employee perceptions of both employee and employer obligations. Consistent with equity theory, results revealed employees perceived more balanced than imbalanced employment relationships upon organizational entry as well as after 1 year of employment. A failure of the employer to fulfil commitments was associated with perceived imbalance in the employment relationship and a significant decrease in perceived employer obligations, suggesting breach is perceived as a trigger for an adjustment to the psychological contract rather than a signal of an injustice. Implications of these findings for research and theory on psychological contracts and breach in the employment relationship are discussed.
Psychological Contract Breach and Organizational Outcomes: Moderating Effect of Tenure
Asian Review of Social Sciences, 2019
Conventional wisdom tells us that only if the employees are paid enough, they can be made happy consequently productive. However, studies have suggested that the nature of the relations between employer and employee have a vital role to play in employee’s job satisfaction, Likewise, employee’s intention to leave the organization is influenced by both money related factors and relational elements. Studies suggest that the nature of the employer-employee relationship significantly affects the employee perceptions and reactions. Psychological Contract is a model which will help one to understand the employer-employee relationship. The mutual expectations and obligations proportionate to each one’s contribution is a general way to define psychological contract. Research suggests that a breach of this contract can affect the organizational outcomes and employee reactions negatively. This study considers the psychological contract breach from the employees’ perspective. Although studies h...
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2009
This study examines how employees' perceptions of specific features of the organizational context-organizational politics and procedural justice-are related to their evaluations of psychological contract breach and subsequent attitudes and behaviors. Across three studies, we examined the appropriateness of four models for describing relationships among the focal constructs. Results of these studies support (a) an environmental responsiveness model in which psychological contract breach mediates the effects of politics and justice on employee outcomes, and (b) a general fairness evaluation model where politics, justice, and psychological contract breach serve as indicators of a higher order factor that predicts employee attitudes and behavior. Implications and directions for future research are presented.
Antecedents of Psychological Contract Breach: The Role of Job Demands, Job Resources, and Affect
PLOS ONE, 2016
While it has been shown that psychological contract breach leads to detrimental outcomes, relatively little is known about factors leading to perceptions of breach. We examine if job demands and resources predict breach perceptions. We argue that perceiving high demands elicits negative affect, while perceiving high resources stimulates positive affect. Positive and negative affect, in turn, influence the likelihood that psychological contract breaches are perceived. We conducted two experience sampling studies to test our hypotheses: the first using daily surveys in a sample of volunteers, the second using weekly surveys in samples of volunteers and paid employees. Our results confirm that job demands and resources are associated with negative and positive affect respectively. Mediation analyses revealed that people who experienced high job resources were less likely to report psychological contract breach, because they experienced high levels of positive affect. The mediating role of negative affect was more complex, as it increased the likelihood to perceive psychological contract breach, but only in the short-term.
The Development of Psychological Contract Breach and Violation: A Social Exchange Approach
2013
the Université catholique de Louvain This study attempts to integrate social exchange and psychological contract theory by examining how the quality of an individual’s relationship with the overall organization (POS) and his or her leader (LMX) moderate the relation between perceptions of contract breach and feelings of violation. We hypothesized that relationship quality (captured by POS and LMX) would be negatively related to perceptions of contract breach and would moderate the relationship between contract breach and violation. We also hypothesized that contract violation would be negatively related to affective commitment and trust in the organization, and positively related to intent to leave. Finally, we predicted that feelings of violation would mediate the effects of contract breach on these work outcomes. Using a longitudinal survey from 159 employees, our results suggest that POS and LMX at Time 1 are negatively related to perceptions of contract breach at Time 2. POS at ...
Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2002
This study examines supervisor and subordinate perceptions of and attributions for psychological contract breach. The data suggest that supervisor and subordinate perceptions are most likely to differ on the extent to which the organization violated its obligations to provide fair pay, advancement opportunities, and a good employment relationship. In addition, the results indicate that the greater the degree of psychological contract breach reported by subordinates, the less committed they are to the organization and the lower their job performance (as rated by their supervisor). Moreover, when psychological contract breach is perceived, supervisors' and subordinates' attributions regarding the reasons for the breach are likely to differ. Speci-®cally, the ®ndings suggest that subordinates are more likely to attribute breach to the organization's intentional disregard for the commitments that it had made to the employee, while supervisors are more inclined to attribute breach to situations beyond the organization's direct control.
The Newcomer’s Psychological Contract Breach and Its Change
The Korean Journal of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 2015
This study has two primary aims: (1) to investigate the relationship between how the newcomer perceives employer promises psychological contract breach, and (2) to understand how these rates change over time. A total of 222 newcomers at major Korean companies were surveyed twice at a three-month interval. Results showed that both levels of perceived employer promise and psychological contract breach decreased over time as individuals accumulated real job experience. Also, the change in perceived employer promises was positively related to the change in breach perception. As their perceived employer promise level decreases over time, newcomers perceived fewer psychological contract breaches. This study provides evidence that a newcomer's breach perception could result from overestimation of employer promise and that job experience plays a role in adjusting employer promise perception to an appropriate level, thereby lowering breach perception. These findings suggest that newcomers' breach perception may be different from that of existing employees, due to incomplete initial understanding of employer promise, leading to increased frequency of breach perception. Practitioners may also benefit from education on new approaches for managing newcomers' breach perception.
The Impact of Psychological Contract Breach on Work-Related Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis
Personnel Psychology, 2007
A meta-analysis was conducted to examine the influence of psychological contract breach on 8 work-related outcomes. Breach was related to all outcomes except actual turnover. Based on affective events theory, we developed a causal model integrating breach, affect (violation and mistrust), attitude (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions), and individual effectiveness (actual turnover, organizational citizenship behavior, and in-role performance). Structural equation modeling was used to test the model. The results indicated that affect mediates the effect of breach on attitude and individual effectiveness. Two moderators were also examined including the type of breach measure (global vs. composite) and the content of the psychological contract breach (transactional vs. relational). Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed. We thank Murray Barrick and three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. A previous version of this article was presented at the
When Employers Betray: A Study of Psychological Contract Breach Among Croatian Employees
Zagreb International Review of Economics and Business, 2016
In this paper we report the results of a study exploring psychological contract breach (PCB) in a heterogeneous sample of Croatian employees (N=363). In addition to reporting PCB, the participants informed us about their basic demographic characteristics, job attitudes (job satisfaction and organizational commitment) and reported three aspects of their job performance (in-role performance, organizational citizenship behavior, counterproductive work behavior). Our analyses showed that PCB experience depended on participants’ characteristics, and, more importantly, was negatively related to job attitudes and job performance. Thus, the detrimental effect of PCB reported in the organizational behavior literature was replicated among Croatian employees.