A Longitudinal Study of Age-Related Differences in Reactions to Psychological Contract Breach

The impact of psychological contract violation and generation difference in the workplace: An empirical study of China

BACKGROUND: Financial rewards might not the only way to keep employees’ stay and to have high performance. We attempt to introduce the perspective of psychological contract (PC) to study the employment relationship. OBJECTIVE: This study is based on the Chinese private enterprise context to explore the effect of psychological contract violation (PCV) and explore whether there are generational differences in the organization. METHODS: We adopt PLS-SEM for empirical research evaluation. A total of 313 valid sample questionnaires were taken. RESULTS: The statistical analysis results show that the psychological contract violation has a significant positive impact on turnover intentions. Psychological contract violation also has significant negative effects on in-role performance and organizational citizenship behavior. In the analysis of generational differences for generation Y employees and generation X employees, when facing psychological contract violations, generation Y employees are more likely to have a stronger turnover intention, lower in-role performance, and less organizational citizenship behavior than generation X employees. CONCLUSIONS: The revised psychological contract violation model is confirmed in the Chinese context. There are significant differences in the influence of generational factors on the psychological contract violation model.

Knowledge-hiding behaviors and employees’ silence: mediating role of psychological contract breach

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between knowledge-hiding behaviors (evasive hiding, playing dumb and rationalized hiding) and employees’ silence (defensive silence, relational silence and ineffectual silence). Besides, this paper investigates the relation mediated by psychological contract breach.

Design/methodology/approach

The data were collected with three-time lags (40 days each) through a structured questionnaire from 389 employees of registered software houses in Pakistan. The structural equation modeling (partial least squares) approach is used for data analysis.

Findings

The findings of this study confirm that knowledge-hiding behaviors have a significant and positive relationship with employees’ silence, and psychological contract breach significantly mediates the relationship between knowledge-hiding behaviors and employees’ silence.

Practical implications

The implications of this study are very supportive to the knowledge-intensive organizations, i.e. software houses. The management should increase the knowledge sharing and trust culture among employees to discourage the knowledge-hiding behaviors among employees. Moreover, supervisors should develop trust among employees, motivate them to avoid knowledge hiding and encourage the employees to raise their voices against their problems in a formal way.

Originality/value

The present study highlights the impact of different dimensions of knowledge hiding on employees’ silence and the role of psychological contract breach as a mediator in this scenario.

Bridging the Breach: Using Positive Affectivity to Overcome Knowledge Hiding after Contract Breaches

With a basis in conservation of resources theory, this study investigates the relationship between employees' exposure to perceived contract breaches and their job performance, while also considering the mediating role of knowledge hiding and the moderating role of positive affectivity. Multisource, three-wave data from employees and their peers in Pakistani organizations reveal that breaches in the psychological contract hinder job performance, because employees respond with an unwillingness to contribute valuable knowledge to execute their job tasks. This mediating role of knowledge hiding is mitigated if employees can draw from their own positive affectivity trait. This study accordingly identifies a key factor, intentional attempts to conceal knowledge requested by other members, that can backfire and make employees suffer doubly: from unfulfilled organizational promises and from lower performance. It also reveals how this risk might be contained, that is, by encouraging employees' positive affect.

Supervisor Incivility and Employee Job Performance: The Mediating Roles of Job Insecurity and Amotivation

Despite the increasing body of research on workplace incivility, the relationship between supervisor incivility and employee job performance, as well as its intermediary mechanisms, has received relatively little attention from researchers. Drawing on the transactional model of stress and self-determination theory, we propose employees' job insecurity and amotivation as mediating mechanisms between supervisor incivility and employee job performance. The proposed serial-mediation model was tested through a multilevel analysis of two-wave surveys collected from kindergarten teachers and their principals. Our mediation analysis revealed that incivility perpetrated by kindergarten principals exerted a negative effect on teachers' job performance three months later by shaping job insecurity perceptions and amotivation. These findings have theoretical implications for the workplace incivility literature and managerial implications for practitioners.

Reactions to psychological contract breaches and organizational citizenship behaviours: An experimental manipulation of severity

Grounded in affective events theory, we investigated the effects of experimentally manipulated psychological contract breaches on participants' feelings of violation, subsequent perceptions of psychological contract strength, and organizational citizenship behaviours in a sample of working adults. Results support previous findings that pre-existing relational psychological contract strength interacts with severity of unmet promises or expectations. Specifically, individuals with high relational contracts who experience low severity of unmet promises/expectations have the lowest breach perceptions, whereas individuals with high relational contracts who experience more severe levels unmet promises/expectations experience the highest level of breach perceptions. Results also support the concept of a breach spiral in that prior perceptions of breach led to an increased likelihood of subsequent perceptions of breach following the experimental manipulation. Furthermore, consistent with affective events theory, results support the argument that a psychological contract breach's effect on specific organizational citizenship behaviours is mediated by feelings of violation and the reassessment of relational contracts. These effects were present even after controlling for the direct effects of the manipulated severity of unmet promises/expectations.

It is your fault! How blame attributions of breach predict employees’ reactions

Purpose

Using insights from attributions, planned behavior, and fairness theories, this study examines the effect of blame attributions of psychological contract breach on employees’ attitudes (affective organizational commitment) and behaviors (organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)). The purpose of this paper is to understand whether employees’ reactions depend on the attributions they make concerning who is responsible for the breach.

Design/methodology/approach

Cross-lagged design in which data were collected from 220 employees and their supervisors in a public company at two times. Moderated mediation was tested using the bootstrapping analysis outlined by Hayes (2012).

Findings

The results supported the authors’ predictions: employees’ blame attributions to the organization have a negative impact on OCBs (as rated by supervisors in time 2) through decreased affective organizational commitment, but blame attributions to the economic context act as a buffer to the relationship between blame attributions to organization and affective organizational commitment, with consequences for OCBs.

Research limitations/implications

Attributions can also be made to concrete persons (i.e. supervisor, coworker, self) rather than to just the organization or context.

Practical implications

When hiring, recruiters should provide accurate and realistic promises to the candidates. When facing hard times, managers should provide additional information to employees and adjust their expectations to the current situation of the firm.

Originality/value

This study makes a unique contribution to the literature by questioning the “single story” perspective about reactions to psychological contract breach, in which it is assumed that employees always respond negatively to such event.