Toward a better understanding of psychological contract breach: A study of customer service employees.

Experiences of psychological contract breach have been associated with a range of negative behavior. However, much of the research has focused on master of business administration alumni and managers and made use of self-reported outcomes. Studying a sample of customer service employees, the research found that psychological contract breach was related to lower organizational trust, which, in turn was associated with perceptions of less cooperative employment relations and higher levels of absenteeism. Furthermore, perceptions of external market pressures moderated the effect of psychological contract breach on absenteeism. The study indicated that psychological contract breach can arise when employees perceive discrepancies between an organization's espoused behavioral standards and its actual behavioral standards, and this can affect discretionary absence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conscientiousness and reactions to psychological contract breach: A longitudinal field study.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 95(5) of Journal of Applied Psychology (see record 2010-18410-006). Six correlations in Table 1 on page 1187 are incorrectly reported. A corrected table is presented in the erratum, with corrected values in bold.] The authors examined the role of employee conscientiousness as a moderator of the relationships between psychological contract breach and employee behavioral and attitudinal reactions to the breach. They collected data from 106 newly hired employees within the 1st month of employment (Time 1), 3 months later (Time 2), and 8 months after Time 1 (Time 3) to observe the progression through contract development, breach, and reaction. Results suggest that conscientiousness is a significant moderator for 4 of the 5 contract breach-employee reaction relationships examined (turnover intentions, organizational loyalty, job satisfaction, and 1 of 2 facets of job performance). Specifically, employees who were lower in conscientiousness had more negative reactions to perceived breach with respect to turnover intentions, organizational loyalty, and job satisfaction. In contrast, employees who were higher in conscientiousness reduced their job performance to a greater degree in response to contract breach. Future research directions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Disentangling the effects of promised and delivered inducements: Relational and transactional contract elements and the mediating role of trust.

Psychological contracts contain both relational and transactional elements, each of which is associated with unique characteristics. In the present research, the authors drew on these distinct qualities to develop and test hypotheses regarding differential employee reactions to underfulfillment, fulfillment, and overfulfillment of relational and transactional promises. Further, the authors extended their test of the theoretical distinctions between relational and transactional contracts by assessing the relevance of trust as a key underlying mechanism of relational and transactional psychological contract breach effects. Participants in this 3-wave longitudinal study included 342 full-time temporary employees. In support of existing theoretical distinctions, results indicated that employees reacted differently to varying levels of fulfillment of their relational and transactional contracts and that trust is a more central mechanism of relational, as opposed to transactional, psychological contract breach effects. These findings underscore L.S. Lambert, J. R. Edwards, and D. M. Cable's (2003) recent recommendation that the traditional conceptualization and study of psychological contract breach requires expansion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)