The Affective Processes Underlying Event-Based Psychological Contract Breach and Fulfillment

Abstract

Psychological contract research has focused on entity-based psychological contract fulfillment (i.e., a generalized evaluation reflecting the degree to which the organization has typically upheld its perceived obligations). Integrating attribution and appraisal theories of emotions, we argue that examining psychological contracts from an event-based perspective (i.e., specific instances of broken or fulfilled promises) can reveal important processes that are distinct from an entity-perspective. Using a daily diary study with event sampling, we find that broken and fulfilled promises are associated with disparate attributions. In turn, breach elicited negative emotions, which prompted negative mood and counterproductive behaviors whereas fulfillment elicited positive emotions, which prompted positive mood and citizenship behaviors. Importantly, broken and fulfilled promises aggregated to influence downstream entity perceptions of psychological contract fulfillment via mood. Theoretical contributions include the importance of (a) distinguishing between event/entity psychological contracts (b) acknowledging distinctions between broken/fulfilled promises, (c) examining emotions as a pivotal mechanism underlying event-based processes, and (d) acknowledging the influence of everyday broken and fulfilled promises on entity-based psychological contract fulfillment. Practical contributions include the importance of effectively managing psychological contracts on an everyday basis and ensuring that employees perceive that the organization does not breach and also fulfills its promises.