Mentors,supervisors and role models: do they reduce the effects of psychological contract breach?

Psychological contract breach has become a significant problem for many organisations in today's business environment because it fosters a belief within employees that the organisation does not support them. Accordingly, we examine whether organisations can diminish the negative impact of psychological contract breach on perceived organisational support (POS) by providing employees with mentors, supportive supervisors and role models. In Study 1, we found that mentor relationships moderated the relationship between psychological contract breach and POS six months later. In Study 2, we showed that mentor relationships and supervisor support reduced the negative impact of contract breach on POS. Contrary to expectations, employees who maintained relationships with role models reported lower levels of POS in response to psychological contract breach than those employees who reported that they did not have role models in their organisations. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Psychological Contract Breach in a Chinese Context: An Integrative Approach

ABSTRACT    This study examined the antecedents and outcomes of psychological contract breach as well as why and how psychological contract breach is related to these outcomes. Respondents were Hong Kong Chinese employees (N=152). Results showed organizational change and history of contract breach to be related to psychological contract breach which, in turn, was related to turnover intentions, psychological withdrawal behaviour, and civic virtue. Further, trust in employer fully mediated the relationship between psychological contract breach and the work outcomes of psychological withdrawal behaviour and civic virtue but partially mediated the psychological contract breach–turnover intentions relationship. Lastly, interactional justice failed to moderate the relationship between psychological contract breach and the work outcomes.     

基于消费者心理契约违背的品牌危机产生机理研究

心理契约概念是建立在社会交换理论基础上,用来描述雇员与雇主关系的理念。构建在企业和消费者共同信任和互惠基础上的消费者品牌关系也是一种心理契约关系。大量研究证明消费者心理契约的违背将导致消费者品牌关系的扭曲甚至断裂,最终导致品牌遭受危机。只有深入研究和探讨品牌危机的产生机理,正确地认识品牌危机,才能有效地防范和化解危机。     

Challenges to the psychological contract in Hong Kong

This study investigates empirically the psychological contract of a sample of 205 Hong Kong junior and senior managers. It determines the perceptions of factors that employers and employees see as relevant to the employment relationship, and then analyses perceptions of and attitudes towards recent changes in the Hong Kong business environment. In addition to exploring the nature and content of manager's psychological contracts in Hong Kong, the study explores how contracts are related to and affected by both the external environment and internal management practices. A survey questionnaire is used to measure the promises and commitments perceived to have been made by organizations, and the obligations that employees perceive they owe to their employer. In addition, the actual policies and practices of the employing organizations are determined. The impact of the HRM climate of the employing organizations (actual policies and practices) and the attitudes, expectations and feelings of organizational members about ongoing changes in the business and management environment on this exchange relationship are isolated. The study makes two contributions to the psychological contract literature: it examines the relevance of a psychological contract approach in a nonWestern geographical region; and it moves the concept of HRM preferences more centrally into the psychological contracting literature. This enables a better understanding of the construct in relation to the comparative management literature. The content of the psychological contract is shown to be multi-dimensional. Perceptions of organizational commitments and promises focus around four judgements: an intrinsically satisfying and challenging environment; a secure and rewarding job; equity; and supportive leadership. By Western standards the employee side of the employment relationship 'deal' is more one-sided. The proportion of managers who believe employees are strongly obligated to do certain things for their employers is very high. The study examines the factors that predict employees' psychological contracts. Actual HRM practices are shown to predict perceived commitments and obligations, and the strength of obligation is related to perceived promises and commitments. In contrast to the emphasis on the internal cognitive and individualized conception of the psychological contract in much of the literature, this study indicates that this decontextualizes psychological contracts. The true nature of a psychological contract is shown to be an exchange relationship firmly linked to a culture's reciprocity norms.     

Consequences Of The Psychological Contract For The Employment Relationship: A Large Scale Survey*

The renewed interest in the concept of the psychological contract has come to the fore in attempts to describe, understand and predict the consequences of changes occurring in the employment relationship. Recognizing that the employment relationship includes two parties to the exchange process, we set out to examine the content and state of the psychological contract from both the employee and employer perspective. The two perspectives permit an examination of the mutuality of obligations, which has not received much empirical attention to date. The research methodology consists of two surveys conducted in a large local authority directly responsible and accountable for a range of public services including education, environmental health and social care to the local population. The key findings suggest that the majority of employees have experienced contract breach. This view is also supported by managers, as representatives of the employer, who further indicate that the organization, given its external pressures, is not fulfilling its obligations to employees to the extent that it could. Overall, the results indicate that employees are redressing the balance in the relationship through reducing their commitment and their willingness to engage in organizational citizenship behaviour when they perceive their employer as not having fulfilled its part in the exchange process.     

Human resource management's role in clarifying the new psychological contract

This article discusses the importance of understanding and managing the changing employee–employer relationship (psychological contract). It offers a brief discussion on changing employee–employer expectations and provides a definition and discussion on the importance of the psychological contract in managing employee–employer relationships. Several employee–employer interactions in which human resource management (HRM) personnel can help clarify and reshape the psychological contract are presented.     

Inclusive human resource management in freelancers' employment relationships: The role of organizational needs and freelancers' psychological contracts

This study aimed to advance our understanding of inclusive human resource management (HRM) in freelance employment. We examined organizational needs and freelancers' psychological contracts with a qualitative interview study among eight dyads of HR managers and freelancers. Although the findings showed that organisations and freelancers have different interests, both parties agreed on what inclusive HRM entails in freelancers' employment relationships. However, within the dyads, the content of the psychological contract was not always viewed the same by HR managers and freelancers. Hence, negotiating mutual expectations when implementing inclusive HRM to avoid psychological contract breach appeared important. Furthermore, organizational needs did not seem to be considered when designing inclusive HRM. Due to this lack of strategic fit, organisations may waste opportunities of tapping into the full potential of hiring freelancers. The findings provide organisations insight in considering freelancers as potential sources of competitive advantage.     

The psychological contract in Chinese-African informal labor relations

This qualitative study analyzes Chinese-Ghanaian employment in trade as an example of South-South cross-cultural labor relations. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, employment practices and labor conflicts are discussed with regard to psychological contract and equity. The analysis is guided by a process model of psychological contract that has been adjusted and extended in consideration of the dimensions of foreignness and cross-cultural communication. After briefly introducing the situation in Ghana we elaborate that under conditions of foreignness, employment relations are conflict prone because of contradictory equity expectations of employers and employees. We discuss how Ghanaian employees perceiving their psychological contract as violated attempt to restore equity by means of voice, silence, retreat or destruction and often fail due to lack of mutual cultural understanding between employers and employees. We conclude that exit in contrast to expectations is a viable option for employers rather than employees, but most employment relations, though defective, are perpetuated.     

Effects of Psychological Contract Breach on Organizational Citizenship Behaviour: Insights from the Group Value Model

Research on psychological contract breach has referenced social exchange as its dominant theoretical foundation. In this study, we draw insights from the group value model as a theoretical extension to explain employees' negative responses to psychological contract breach. According to the group value model, fair treatment by group members communicates symbolic messages about the relationship between the organization and the employee, and has implications for whether employees can take pride in their organizational membership. When people are treated unfairly, they lose trust in the organization and dis‐identify from the group. This in turn results in less willingness on the part of the employees to engage in organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs). We tested these relationships across three studies. In Study 1, we conducted a longitudinal test of the role of trust as a mediator between breach and organizational identification. In Studies 2 (cross‐sectional) and 3 (longitudinal), we tested the complete model in which we examined the role of trust and identification in mediating the link between breach and OCBs. All three studies provided support for the mediated model. Furthermore, as predicted by the group value model, the hypothesized relationships emerged in response to relational but not transactional contract breaches. Theoretical and applied implications are discussed.     

The difference a manager can make: organizational justice and knowledge worker commitment

The quality of the employment relationship is argued to be central to knowledge workers' commitment, which in turn supports knowledge creation. Given the high levels of discretion enjoyed by knowledge workers, managers' decisions over work distribution, content and resources become more critical for commitment and knowledge creation. However, little research has explored how justice perceptions shape the quality of the employment relationship and the consequences for commitment. Using a sample of 429 R&D workers from across six science and technology-based firms this paper explores the three-way interaction of procedural and interactional justice with the psychological contract to predict knowledge worker commitment. We found that when employees simultaneously perceived high levels of procedural and interactional justice this moderated the relationship between psychological contract breach and knowledge worker commitment. Furthermore, where there was contract breach, positive perceptions of procedural justice moderated the relationship with commitment. However, in the context of contract fulfilment, low perceived levels of interactional justice predicted lower comparative levels of commitment, regardless of the level of procedural justice.

The results suggest that the perceived quality of the relationship between knowledge workers and their manager can make a positive difference in the context of breach of the psychological contract and this in turn can help maintain levels of commitment important for knowledge creation.     

“Good Cause Beliefs” in an “At-Will World”? A Focused Investigation of Psychological Versus Legal Contracts

This study assesses the psychological contracts of a group of at-will employees and compares their relevant psychological contract beliefs with the terms of the controlling legal employment contract. In addition, we test specific hypotheses regarding the relationship between employers formal job security policy (employment at-will vs. good cause protection, and employee personal characteristics; equity sensitivity, organizational tenure) to 2 focal psychological contract beliefs (the employers obligation to have a good reason to discharge the employee, and the employees reciprocal obligation to have a good reason to leave his/her employer). These issues are investigated using survey data sampled from 15 diverse U.S. organizations, and independently collected information regarding organizations job security policies. The results provide evidence of a widely shared psychological contract belief that, despite explicit at-will policies, U.S. employers are highly obligated to have a good reason to discharge employees. Further, personal characteristics are more strongly related to the focal psychological contract beliefs than employer job security policies. The theoretical contribution of the study and its practical implications are discussed.     

How Adult Attachment Styles Relate to Perceived Psychological Contract Breach and Affective Organizational Commitment

The current study examines the relationship between adult attachment style and both perceived psychological contract breach and affective organizational commitment in a sample of college students with employment experience. Attachment style is argued to be an individual difference factor that affects how an individual perceives organizational events based on theory and existing empirical research related to adult attachment style. Individuals with insecure attachment styles were predicted to perceive more psychological contract breach and have lower levels of affective organizational commitment. The results reveal that individuals with higher levels of preoccupied and dismissive attachment styles perceived higher levels of psychological contract breach, and preoccupied attachment style significantly and negatively relates to affective organizational commitment. The relationship between attachment style and psychological contract dimensions was stronger for relational than transactional contract dimensions. Evidence is also found that perceived psychological contract breach mediates the relationship between preoccupied attachment style and affective commitment. Future potential research directions are described. The implications of these findings for managerial practice is discussed.     

Managing employee expectations during acquisitions

There is a wide body of evidence that suggests that the management of 'human factors' in post‐acquisition implementation is important and, where it is badly managed, helps to explain why up to half of acquisitions are not deemed to be successful. A central feature in this process is the management of employee expectations. Using research insights drawn from the management and formation of expectations in recruitment and from breaches of the psychological contract, this article reports on research in organisations subject to a takeover within two years of the field work. Detailed findings on two of these cases are used to explore the dimensions of dual expectations in such circumstances. It is suggested that employees in acquired companies have concerns that become expectations concerning both themselves ('me') and their work group ('us'), ranging from immediate job and employment worries on transfer to longer‐term status and behavioural and cultural concerns in the 'new' organisation. These expectations will vary over time and have different facets according to the seniority of the employee, the degree of integration sought by the acquirer and the extent to which expectations formed are proven to be realistic and realisable. The two cases analysed reveal different aspects of unmet expectations in acquisitions. Seven factors were identified as influential in shaping employees' expectations in acquisitions: quality of communication, believability of information, trust in management action, credibility of leadership, fairness of action, consistency of action and communication and logic of management action or behaviour.     

A Psychological Contract Perspective of Expatriate Failure

The expatriate literature needs to move beyond maladjustment as a primary reason for expatriate failure. This article draws on the psychological contract as a valuable lens to observe changes in expatriate behavior that may determine expatriate success or failure on international assignments. Prior research on the expatriate psychological contract has focused solely on an expatriate's social exchange relationship with the assigning parent company. This article offers a dual‐foci perspective of the expatriate psychological contract and suggests that expatriates’ perceptions of psychological contract breach arise from two sources—the assigning parent company and the receiving host company. The conceptualization of breach with dual foci forms the basis for the proposed model of expatriate failure. The model proposes that differences in expatriates’ contexts will influence their likelihood of perceiving breach and that breach, once perceived, will affect expatriate behavior through its influence on sense‐making, affect, conation, and attitudes. The propositions developed in this article provide a foundation for future theorizing and empirical work on expatriate cognitions of psychological contract breach. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Inducements,contributions, and fulfillment in new employee psychological contracts

This longitudinal study of newly hired Chinese college graduates (N = 143) investigates the effects of contract fulfillment, employee reports of company inducements (organizational support and job rewards), and supervisory reports of individual contributions (job performance and extra‐role citizenship behavior) upon changes in the graduates' psychological contracts. Three survey waves were administered a year apart, starting with the recruits' job offer acceptance. Analyses revealed that employee fulfillment and perceived contributions predicted particular changes in employer psychological contract obligations, whereas employer fulfillment and perceived inducements predicted changes in employee obligations. The effects of inducements on employee obligation changes and contributions on employer obligation changes were mediated by their respective fulfillment measures. Changes in obligations were greater in the first year of employment than in the second. This study yields implications for managing newcomers and researching the initial phase of employment. ©2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Organization‐Based Self‐Esteem,Psychological Contract Fulfillment,and Perceived Employment Opportunities: A Test of Self‐Regulatory Theory

This study addresses organization‐based self‐esteem (OBSE) development by examining the role of perceptions of employer psychological contract fulfillment, and the self‐regulatory processes by which OBSE evolves and produces its effects. Self‐regulatory theory helps reveal why psychological contract fulfillment relates to OBSE, how OBSE mediates its effects, and the ways in which OBSE might interact with perceived employment opportunities to affect job satisfaction, performance, and turnover intentions. The results show that OBSE is related to and mediates the relationships between relational contract fulfillment and employee job satisfaction and performance, but OBSE is not related to transactional contract fulfillment. Nor does OBSE mediate the relationships between transactional contract fulfillment and the dependent variables. Perceived employment opportunities moderate the relationships of OBSE with job satisfaction and turnover intentions. This study concludes with recommendations of ways managers can increase their sensitivity to the types of messages they communicate to employees. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Work engagement,psychological contract breach and job satisfaction

This study extends both Social Exchange Theory and the Job Demands–Resources model by examining the link between psychological contract breach (PCB) and work engagement, and by integrating job satisfaction into this exchange relationship. We argue that PCB reflects employees' feelings of resource loss, and that these feelings impact work engagement through their impact on job satisfaction. Levels of employee work engagement can therefore be viewed as reciprocation for the exchange content provided by employers. We conduct structural equation modeling on longitudinal survey data from 191 employees, and our results suggest that the negative effect of PCB on work engagement is mediated by job satisfaction.     

Employers' hiring practices,employment protection,and costly search: A vacancy-level analysis

An employer with a vacancy may respond to high search costs by lowering hiring requirements. While such an adjustment increases the employer's chances of filling the vacancy, it also more likely results in a match that terminates when the match is hit by match-specific productivity shocks. Drawing on a novel Slovenian vacancy dataset, we find that employers who are searching to fill temporary positions are more likely to hire underqualified workers when search costs are high. We find that search costs are taken into consideration when employers are searching to fill permanent positions in some specifications but not all. These findings suggest that for employers who are searching to fill a permanent position, the benefits of lowering hiring requirements when search costs are high are likely outweighed by: a) high firing costs if an under-qualified worker is hired on a permanent contract or b) the costs of undertaking a new search later if an under-qualified worker is hired on a temporary contract. These are novel findings about the employers' hiring practices in the presence of employment protection laws and costly search.     

资源分配中的差序格局探析——雇主的雇佣关系治理策略

组织资源的分配是雇主企业管理的重要组成部分。在中国独特的社会文化根基下,它表现出"差序格局"的基本结构,成为雇主治理雇佣关系的非制度化策略,具体表现在:差序式的关系判断;内外有别的利益分配;基于关系信任的职务晋升。从雇佣关系的本质属性来看,差序式资源分配的内在逻辑是雇主的一种人情投资,旨在增加组织成员的凝聚力,提高组织绩效。