Abstract
SummaryRelationships 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.
Highlights
The term “psychological contract” refers to employees' beliefs regarding the mutual obligations between themselves and their organization (Rousseau, 1995)
Based on the psychological contract perspective on careers, and its key proposition regarding the centrality of career goals (Baruch & Rousseau, 2019), we argue that psychological contract breach is negatively related to focus on opportunities and positively related to focus on limitations
We found that psychological contract breach is negatively related to focus on opportunities and perceived remaining time and positively related to focus on limitations
Summary
The term “psychological contract” refers to employees' beliefs regarding the mutual obligations between themselves and their organization (Rousseau, 1995). Numerous studies have shown that psychological contract breach—employees' perception that their organization has not fulfilled its obligations (Morrison & Robinson, 1997)—is negatively related to favorable job attitudes and performance (Zhao, Wayne, Glibkowski, & Bravo, 2007). These associations have typically been explained using social exchange theory (Blau, 1964) and the norm of reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960). Research shows that breach is positively related to psychological contract violation (i.e., negative organization-focused emotions, such as anger; Robinson & Rousseau, 1994) and counterproductive work behavior (via revenge cognitions; Bordia, Restubog, & Tang, 2008).
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