Psychological contracts and OCB: The effect of unfulfilled obligations on civic virtue behavior

This study examines the relationship between violation of an employee's psychological contract and civic virtue behavior. A psychological contract is a set of beliefs regarding mutual obligations between employee and employer. One hundred twenty-six MBA alumni were surveyed at the time of hire (T1), and after 18 months (T2) and 30 months (T3) on the job. When employees felt that their employers had failed to fulfil employment obligations at T2, they were less likely to engage in civic virtue behavior at T3. There was evidence that this relationship was partly mediated by trust. These findings have implications for research on OCB and for managers seeking to maintain employee citizenship behavior.     

Antecedents and consequences of relational components of the new psychological contract

The literature regarding the new psychological contract suggests that the traditional paternalistic employer–employee relationship in U.S. companies has eroded. We investigated the relationship between relational components of the new psychological contract (personal responsibility for career development, commitment to type of work, and expectations of job insecurity), work experiences (involuntary job loss, organizational change, voluntary job change, and violation of obligations), and work outcomes (job satisfaction, participation in development activities, and intention to remain with the employer). We hypothesized that managerial and professional employees' level of agreement with relational components of the new psychological contract would mediate the relationship between their work experiences and work outcomes. In partial support of the model, we found that level of agreement with relational components of the new psychological contract mediated the relationship between work experiences and intention to remain with the employer and job satisfaction. Contrary to the model, no relationship was found among work experiences, level of agreement with relational components of the new psychological contract, and participation in development activities. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The more I want,the less I have left to give: The moderating role of psychological entitlement on the relationship between psychological contract violation,depressive mood states,and citizenship behavior

Research has emphasized the negative effects of organizations' broken promises and failed obligations on employee attitudes and behaviors. However, not all employees respond in the same manner. This paper integrates research on psychological contracts and psychological entitlement to examine how individuals with exceedingly high demands and expectations react to a perceived letdown by the organization. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, we argue that a psychological contract violation is associated with employee depressive mood states, which, in turn, influence the amount of citizenship behavior displayed. We further posit that psychological entitlement moderates the link between contract violation and depressive mood states. Using Hayes' PROCESS macro to assess a moderated mediation model, findings from a multi‐source field study support our predictions. This research contributes to the work on psychological contracts and psychological entitlement on multiple fronts. Suggestions for future research and practical implications for managers are discussed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reactions to psychological contract breach: a dual perspective

This study examined reactions to psychological contract breach from two separate perspectives, that is, employee's reactions to perceptions of employer breach and supervisor's reactions to perceptions of employee breach of the psychological contract. In addition to the main effects, we also hypothesized that the benevolence (or kindness) of the supervisor and the traditional values (or respect for authority) of the employee would attenuate the negative effects of psychological contract breach. We tested these hypotheses with a sample of 273 supervisor‐subordinate dyads from the People's Republic of China. The results showed that employer breach correlated negatively with employee outcomes of organizational commitment (OC), organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and work performance, but this negative relationship was weaker for employees with traditional values. The results also demonstrated that employee breach correlated negatively with responses from the supervisor, in terms of the mentoring provided to the employee and the leader‐member exchange (LMX) quality. However, more benevolent supervisors reacted less negatively in terms of the mentoring than did the less benevolent supervisors. Implications for future research are offered. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Outcomes associated with breach and fulfillment of the psychological contract of safety

IntroductionThe study investigated the outcomes associated with breach and fulfillment of the psychological contract of safety.MethodThe psychological contract of safety is defined as the beliefs of individuals about reciprocal employer and employee safety obligations inferred from implicit or explicit promises. When employees perceive that safety obligations promised by the employer have not been met, a breach of the psychological contract occurs, termed employer breach of obligations. The extent to which employees fulfill their safety obligations to the employer is termed employee fulfillment of obligations. Structural equation modeling was used to test a model of safety that investigated the positive and negative outcomes associated with breach and fulfillment of the psychological contract of safety. Participants were 424 health care workers recruited from two hospitals in the State of Victoria, Australia.ResultsFollowing slight modification of the hypothesized model, a good fitting model resulted. Being injured in the workplace was found to lower perceptions of trust in the employer and increase perceptions of employer breach of safety obligations. Trust in the employer significantly influenced perceived employer breach of safety obligations such that lowered trust resulted in higher perceptions of breach. Perceptions of employer breach significantly impacted employee fulfillment of safety obligations with high perceptions of breach resulting in low employee fulfillment of obligations. Trust and perceptions of breach significantly influenced safety attitudes, but not safety behavior. Fulfillment of employee safety obligations significantly impacted safety behavior, but not safety attitudes. Implications of these findings for safety and psychological contract research are explored. A positive emphasis on social exchange relationships in organizations will have positive outcomes for safety climate and safety behavior.     

The application of the psychological contract to workplace safety

INTRODUCTION: Psychological contracts of safety are conceptualized as the beliefs of individuals about reciprocal safety obligations inferred from implicit or explicit promises. Although the literature on psychological contracts is growing, the existence of psychological contracts in relation to safety has not been established. The research sought to identify psychological contracts in the conversations of employees about safety, by demonstrating reciprocity in relation to employer and employee safety obligations. The identified safety obligations were used to develop a measure of psychological contracts of safety. METHOD: The participants were 131 employees attending safety training sessions in retail and manufacturing organizations. Non-participant observation was used to collect the data during safety training sessions. Content analysis was used to analyze the data. Categories for coding were established through identification of language markers that demonstrated contingencies or other implied obligations. RESULTS: Direct evidence of reciprocity between employer safety obligations and employee safety obligations was found in statements from the participants demonstrating psychological contracts. A comprehensive list of perceived employer and employee safety obligations was compiled and developed into a measure of psychological contracts of safety. A small sample of 33 safety personnel was used to validate the safety obligations. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPACT ON INDUSTRY: Implications of these findings for safety and psychological contract research are discussed.     

Why should I be generous when I have valued and accessible alternatives? Alternative exchange partners and OCB

An Erratum has been published for this article in Journal of Organizational Behavior 26(7) 2005, 873. Previous research on the relationship between alternative employment opportunities and cooperation has neglected the distinction between evaluations and restrictions. Thus, one cannot analyze the relationship between attractiveness of alternative employment opportunities and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) under different levels of perceived ease of finding alternative employment. In a pilot study with N = 149 German employees, we confirm the proposed distinction with confirmatory factor analyses. Based on power‐dependence theory and rational choice models, we predict that under high ease the relationship between attractiveness and OCB should be more strongly negative than under conditions of low ease. In addition, we hypothesize that the interaction between attractiveness and ease should be greater for OCB than for task performance because task performance is exchanged in a relationship with an enforceable, binding contract, while OCB is voluntarily. Results from moderated multiple regression analysis on N = 86 German professional–supervisor dyads support our prediction for a negative relationship between attractiveness and OCB under high ease. Under low ease, we find a positive relationship between attractiveness and OCB. Moreover, there was no relationship with the interaction and task performance. Implications of the findings both for extra‐role and job mobility theory formation and research are discussed. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A new look at the psychological contract during organizational socialization: The role of newcomers' obligations at entry

Previous studies have demonstrated that the psychological contract is largely shaped during socialization. This study adopts a complementary perspective and analyzes how the psychological contract at the start of employment shapes the subsequent socialization process. Drawing upon social exchange theory, we propose that newcomers with a higher sense of their personal obligations at entry will perceive orientation training as more useful and develop better relationships with their supervisors and peers, which in turn will facilitate their work adjustment. Results of a longitudinal survey on a sample of 144 recruits from a European Army show that newcomers with a higher initial sense of their employee obligations toward their employer report higher perceived training utility, higher leader–member exchange (LMX) with their instructors, and higher team–member exchange (TMX) with their platoon peers. Moreover, perceived training utility and LMX predict the fulfillment of employers' obligations; and training utility predicts the level of newcomers' employee obligations. Finally, training utility, LMX, and TMX predict some of three indicators of newcomers' adjustment, namely, role clarity (training utility and LMX), group integration (TMX), and organizational values understanding (training utility). These results highlight how newcomers' obligations at the start of employment contribute to the social exchange dynamic underlying organizational socialization. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The development and validation of a psychological contract of safety scale

Introduction

This paper builds on previous research by the author and describes the development and validation of a new measure of the psychological contract of safety. The psychological contract of safety is defined as the beliefs of individuals about reciprocal safety obligations inferred from implicit and explicit promises.

Method

A psychological contract is established when an individual believes that perceived employer and employee safety obligations are contingent on each other. A pilot test of the measure is first undertaken with participants from three different occupations: nurses, construction workers, and meat processing workers (N = 99). Item analysis is used to refine the measure and provide initial validation of the scale. A larger validation study is then conducted with a participant sample of health care workers (N = 424) to further refine the measure and to determine the psychometric properties of the scale.

Results

Item and correlational analyses produced the final employer and employee obligations scales, consisting of 21 and 17 items, respectively. Factor analyses identified two underlying dimensions in each scale comparable to that previously established in the organizational literature. These transactional and relational-type obligations provided construct validity of the scale. Internal consistency ratings using Cronbach's alpha found the components of the psychological contract of safety measure to be reliable.

Impact on Industry

The refined and validated psychological contract of safety measure will allow investigation of the positive and negative outcomes associated with fulfilment and breach of the psychological contract of safety in future research.     

Assessing the nature of psychological contracts: a validation of six dimensions

The purpose of this study is to develop a feature‐oriented assessment of psychological contracts, an underdeveloped approach to psychological contracts. Relying on theoretical frameworks in psychological contract research, industrial relations studies, and a cross‐national study on psychological contracts, we identify six dimensions that capture the nature of psychological contracts: tangibility, scope, stability, time frame, exchange symmetry, and contract level. We validate this expanded conceptualization of psychological contracts by developing a nomological network and testing it in a large, representative sample of 1106 employees. The results indicate the significance of formal contract characteristics and HR practices as two antecedents shaping the nature of psychological contracts. In addition, the hypothesized relationships between the three dimensions of time frame, exchange symmetry, and contract level with affective commitment are confirmed as well as the relationships between tangibility, scope and flexibility with personal control. The results further indicate the importance of assessing both employer and employee obligations given the differential effect of the contract makers. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does one good turn deserve another? coworker influences on employee citizenship

Social information processing and social learning theories were utilized to hypothesize that an employee's organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is influenced by the collective OCB in one's workgroup. An aggregate measure of OCB was constructed based upon Podsakoff, MacKenzie, and Fetter's (1993) measures of Organ's (1988) typology of OCB, and the study was replicated using both supervisor and employee‐provided ratings of OCB. The sample for this study included 566 employees (488 for the supervisor‐rated analysis) from 56 workgroups in a manufacturing organization. The mean level of OCB for other members of one's workgroup explained significant variance in individual levels of OCB. We also found that this effect is moderated by the consistency of the display of the OCB within the workgroup. The consistency of OCB across coworkers was associated with more OCB by individuals and this effect was replicated across both supervisor and employee ratings. Explanations and uses for our findings are discussed. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How work ideologies shape the psychological contracts of professional employees: doctors' responses to perceived breach

This study suggests that the psychological contract between a professional and his/her employing organization is shaped by both professional and administrative work ideologies and therefore involves both professional and administrative roles and perceived role obligations. It is also suggested that because of important differences between these two ideologies, a professional employee's response to perceptions that his/her organization is not fulfilling its role obligations will depend on whether the perceived breach involves professional or administrative obligations. Hypotheses based on this general proposition were strongly supported in a sample of medical professionals. Specifically, results suggest that perceived breaches of administrative role obligations are most strongly associated with dissatisfaction, thoughts of quitting, and turnover whereas perceived breaches of professional role obligations are most strongly associated with lower organizational commitment and job performance (productivity and client satisfaction). Implications for theory and research on the dimensionality of the psychological employment contract and on the employment of professionals are considered. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transformational leadership,relationship quality,and employee performance during continuous incremental organizational change

Although transformational leadership has been investigated in connection with change at higher levels of organizations, less is known about its “in‐the‐trenches” impact. We examined relations among transformational leadership, explicit change reactions (i.e., relationship quality), change frequency, and change consequences (i.e., task performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)) during continuous incremental organizational change at lower hierarchical levels. In a sample of 251 employees and their 78 managers, analyses revealed that the quality of relationships between leaders and employees mediated the influence of transformational leadership on employee task performance and OCB. We also found that change frequency moderated the positive association of relationship quality with task performance and OCB, such that associations were stronger when change frequency was high. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A multi‐level investigation of psychological contract breach and organizational identification through the lens of perceived organizational membership: Testing a moderated–mediated model

Drawing on the perceived organizational membership theoretical framework and the social identity view of dissonance theory, I examined in this study the dynamics of the relationship between psychological contract breach and organizational identification. I included group‐level transformational and transactional leadership as well as procedural justice in the hypothesized model as key antecedents for organizational membership processes. I further explored the mediating role of psychological contract breach in the relationship between leadership, procedural justice climate, and organizational identification and proposed separateness–connectedness self‐schema as an important moderator of the above mediated relationship. Hierarchical linear modeling results from a sample of 864 employees from 162 work units in 10 Greek organizations indicated that employees' perception of psychological contract breach negatively affected their organizational identification. I also found psychological contract breach to mediate the impact of transformational and transactional leadership on organizational identification. Results further provided support for moderated mediation and showed that the indirect effects of transformational and transactional leadership on identification through psychological contract breach were stronger for employees with a low connectedness self‐schema. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Meta‐analytic tests of relationships between organizational justice and citizenship behavior: testing agent‐system and shared‐variance models

Research on the unique effects of different types of perceived fairness on citizenship behavior that benefits individuals (organizational citizenship behavior (OCB‐I) and organizations (OCB‐O) has produced mixed results. We assert that how OCB‐O and OCB‐I are conceptualized affects the patterns of results, and we hypothesize that, when OCB is conceptualized appropriately, an agent‐system model is supported (interactional and procedural justice are the strongest unique predictors of OCB‐I and OCB‐O, respectively). We also hypothesize that shared variance among the justice types explains additional variance in OCB. Analyses of semi‐ partial correlations conducted on meta‐analytic coefficients supported our hypotheses. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Not seeing eye to eye: differences in supervisor and subordinate perceptions of and attributions for psychological contract breach

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. Specifically, the findings 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. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relationships between psychological contract breach and employee well‐being and career‐related behavior: The role of occupational future time perspective

Relationships between psychological contract breach and employee well‐being and career‐related behavior cannot sufficiently be explained by social exchange and reciprocity theories, yet the alternative mechanisms underlying these associations are currently not well understood. Based on the psychological contract perspective on careers, the goal of this study was to examine indirect effects of psychological contract breach on emotional engagement, emotional exhaustion, and career‐related behavior through two dimensions of occupational future time perspective (i.e., focus on opportunities and focus on limitations). Data came from 405 employees in Australia, who responded to three surveys across 12 months. Results showed that psychological contract breach had indirect effects on emotional engagement and exhaustion through focus on opportunities and focus on limitations, respectively, and on career‐related behavior through focus on opportunities. Another mechanism, psychological contract violation, was only related to employees' organizational deviance. These findings highlight the important role of occupational future time perspective dimensions as employees' evaluations of future career‐related opportunities and limitations. These evaluations may change in response to psychological contract breach and, in turn, might impact on employee well‐being and career‐related behavior.     

The effects of managerial and employee attributions for corporate social responsibility initiatives

Although corporate social responsibility (CSR) can affect employees, we know little about how it affects them. Employees' interpretation of CSR is important because of the paradoxical nature of CSR. When firms operate in ways that seem counter to their nature (i.e., pursuit of social good rather than profit), the causal attributions of affected employees are crucial to understanding their work‐related behavior, as is the role of contextual factors such as leadership processes in shaping these attributions. Drawing from attribution and social learning theories, we develop a multilevel social influence theory of how CSR affects employees. We integrate managers as second observers in the baseline actor (i.e., firm)—observer (i.e., employee) dyad, whereas most attribution theory research has focused on single actor–observer dyads. Multisource field data collected from 427 employees and 45 managers were analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling. Managers' genuine (self‐serving) CSR attributions are positively related to employees' genuine (self‐serving) CSR attributions; and the strength of the relationship between managers' and employees' genuine CSR attributions depends on managers' organizational tenure. Employees' genuine CSR attributions also are positively related to employee advocacy, whereas—interestingly—employees' self‐serving CSR attributions do not appear to harm employee advocacy. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An Empirical Investigation of the Influence of Safety Climate on Organizational Citizenship Behavior in Taiwan’s Facilities

Although the social exchange relationships between employers and employees are increasingly important to the performance of safety management systems, the psychological effects of work attitudes on this relationship have been less studied. Using a sample of first-line operators and their supervisors from 188 facilities in Taiwan which had Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series 18000 (OHSAS 18000) certification, the current research conducted an empirical investigation of the influence of safety climate on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Work attitude was used to disclose the psychological effect. Research results indicated that (a) safety climate was a significant predicator of OCB, (b) the psychological effect significantly influenced social exchange relationships, and (c) job satisfaction showed a stronger mediating influence than organizational commitment due to the frequent top management turnover. Discussions and implications are also addressed.     

An empirical investigation of the influence of safety climate on organizational citizenship behavior in Taiwan's facilities.

Although the social exchange relationships between employers and employees are increasingly important to the performance of safety management systems, the psychological effects of work attitudes on this relationship have been less studied. Using a sample of first-line operators and their supervisors from 188 facilities in Taiwan which had Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series 18000 (OHSAS 18000) certification, the current research conducted an empirical investigation of the influence of safety climate on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Work attitude was used to disclose the psychological effect. Research results indicated that (a) safety climate was a significant predicator of OCB, (b) the psychological effect significantly influenced social exchange relationships, and (c) job satisfaction showed a stronger mediating influence than organizational commitment due to the frequent top management turnover. Discussions and implications are also addressed.