Breach of psychological contract and workplace outcomes: The mediational role of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and employee engagement.

摘要

Organizations develop strategies in order to remain competitive in today's business market through downsizing, outsourcing, and reorganizing. Although these strategies may have benefitted the company in the long-term, these changes directly affected the employeeemployer relationship resulting in negative attitudes and costly workplace outcomes. Often, these attitudes and outcomes were the result of a breach in an employee's psychological contract. The development of a breach stemmed from an employee's perception of an imbalance in the employee-employer relationships, and the employee developed negative attitudes and behavioral intentions to maintain balance. This dissertation study suggested two sets of hypotheses to expand current understandings of the relationship between psychological contract breach and negative workplace outcomes. The first set of hypotheses examined job satisfaction, affective and normative commitment, and employee engagement regarding their mediating effect on the relationship between psychological contracts (breach and degree of fulfillment) and turnover intention, counterproductive work behaviors, and job search behaviors. The second set of hypotheses examined the moderating influence of job alternatives and continuance commitment on the relationship between psychological contract breach and counterproductive work behaviors. The study contributed to the existing literature on psychological contracts by suggesting two pathways, where psychological contract and psychological contract violations caused cognitive and emotional reactions, respectively. As a result, these reactions link to specific withdrawal behaviors that affect the company's bottom-line (Kotter, 1973; Robinson, Kraatz & Rousseau, 1994; Rousseau, 2004; Rousseau & Tijoriwala, 1998).