Employees' reactions to supervisors' fulfillment/non-fulfillment of psychological contract promises: an experimental field study
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-07-2020-0308 |
| Published date | 08 March 2022 |
| Date | 08 March 2022 |
| Pages | 948-971 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
| Author | Khaldoun I. Ababneh,Evangelos Dedousis,Udo Braendle |
Employees’reactions
to supervisors’fulfillment/
non-fulfillment of psychological
contract promises:
an experimental field study
Khaldoun I. Ababneh
Department of Management, American University in Dubai,
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Evangelos Dedousis
American University in Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and
Udo Braendle
Dubai Business School, University of Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Abstract
Purpose –Drawing upon social exchange theory and psychological contract (PC) research, this study aims to
examine the impact of supervisors’fulfillment/non-fulfillment of transactional psychological contract (TPC)
and relational psychological contract (RPC) promises on employees’reactions (e.g. feelings of violation, trust in
the supervisor and organizational commitment) in a non-Western context, namely, the United Arab
Emirates (UAE).
Design/methodology/approach –An experimental field design was used with a sample of employees
(N5234) from a wide range of nationalities and work backgrounds. Four conditions were developed by
manipulating the fulfillment of three TPC promises (e.g. competitive salary) and three RPC promises (e.g.
sufficient power and responsibility). Participants were randomly assigned to the four conditions and asked to
complete the study materials as if they were experiencing a real employment situation with a real organization.
Hypotheses were tested using multivariate analysis of covariance and follow-up univariate analysis with
Bonferroni post hoc comparisons.
Findings –This study demonstrated that a supervisor’s failure to fulfill promises pertinent to both TPC and
RPC, or one of them, generated negative reactions among participants. Based on a comparison of means
analysis, this study also established that breach of TPC promises produced a higher negative impact than
breach of RPC promises on perceptions of breach, feelings of violation, trust in the supervisor, organizational
perceptions, organizationalcommitment and recommendation intentions. Furthermore, these findings revealed
that a supervisor’s breach of RPC promises has no significant incremental (additive) effect above a supervisor’s
breach of TPC promises. On the other hand, a supervisor’s breach of TPC promises has a significant
incremental (additive) effect above a supervisor’s breach of RPC promises.
Originality/value –This study is one of the very few studies that examined and established, under a
controlled setting, the differential effects of fulfillment/non-fulfillment of both TPC and RPC promises on
employees’breach perceptions, emotions, attitudes and behavioral intentions.
Keywords Psychological contract violation, Transactional psychological contract breach, Relational
psychological contract breach, Supervisors’fulfillment of promises, UAE
Paper type Research paper
ER
44,4
948
The authors are thankful for the anonymous reviewers, associate editor and chief editor at the Employee
Relations for their helpful feedback on this article. The authors also would like to extend their thanks to
Aaron Schat, Mohamed Al-Waqfi and Zafer Akin for their helpful commentson an earlier version of this
article.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0142-5455.htm
Received 1 July 2020
Revised 30 December 2020
27 May 2021
25 November 2021
Accepted 28 January 2022
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 44 No. 4, 2022
pp. 948-971
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-07-2020-0308
Introduction
Throughout the recruitment and selection process, organizational representatives (e.g.
supervisors, recruiters and owners) explicitly and/or implicitly promise to offer employees’
positive incentives such as a competitive salary and job security in exchange for employees’
contributions such as high performance and loyalty to the organization (Ali, 2021;Montes
and Irving, 2008;Rodwell et al., 2015;Rousseau et al., 2018). However, for various reasons,
organizations and/or their representatives often fail to fulfill employment promises made to
employees (Robinson and Morrison, 2000). Indeed, in the context of major structural changes
taking place in today’s organizations, such as downsizing, telecommuting and global
outsourcing (OECD, 2019), the failure to fulfill employment promises has become a
widespread phenomenon (De Clercq et al., 2021).
Research has demonstrated that, when employees perceive that employment promises
were not honored, the effects on the employer–employee relationship are damaging and
the impact on employee attitudes (e.g. organizational commitment), emotions (e.g. anger
toward the organization) and behaviors (e.g. in-role and extra-role performance) is
detrimental (e.g. Zhao et al.,2007). Employees’reactions to unfulfilled employment
promises have been examined from several, at times overlapping, theoretical perspectives
including equity (Chaudhry et al., 2009), psychological contract (PC) (Rousseau, 1995)and
social exchange (Bal et al.,2010).A basic tenet of the social exchange theory (SET) is that
the employee–organization relationship involves rules and norms of exchange and
expectations of reciprocity between the parties. When an organization fails to fulfill its
obligations and promises, by delivering less than what employees had expected,
employees will reciprocate by reducing their effort and other contributions to the
organization. Likewise, when an organization fulfills its obligations and promises
employees will reciprocate by increasing their effort and make discretionary positive
contributions to the organization (Bal et al., 2010).
A closely related perspective to understand employees’reactions to unmet employment
promises is that of the PC, the theoretical roots of which can be traced to the SET (Petersitzke,
2009). Although there is no general agreement on the definition of PC, the most widely used
one is that put forward by Rousseau (Conway and Briner, 2009). Specifically, Rousseau
defined PC as “individual beliefs, shaped by the organization, regarding terms of an exchange
agreement between the individual and their organization”(Rousseau, 1995, p. 9).
Despite major contributions of studies that have examined the antecedents and
consequences of PC breach (see reviews by Conway and Briner, 2009;de Jong and Rigotti,
2019;Zhao et al., 2007), research on PC suffers on four counts. One, most of the existing
research has been conducted in North America and Europe, thus limiting the generalizability
of findings to other contexts (Ali, 2021;De Clercq et al., 2021;Hui et al., 2004;Krishnan, 2011;
Rousseau and Schalk, 2000). Two, prior PC research has mostly used designs that do not
allow for establishing causality between the examined variables (Atkinson et al., 2018;
Conway and Briner, 2009;de Jong and Rigotti, 2019). Literature reviews of PC research (e.g. de
Jong and Rigotti, 2019) have revealed that “while there are thousands of psychological contract
studies”(Conway and Pekcan, 2019, p. 23), only about 10 of these studies have used an
experimental design (e.g. Henderson et al., 2020;Vogelgesang et al., 2021;Zhang et al., 2021).
Importantly, an experimental design, such as the one used in this study, is vital for
establishing causality between the examined variables (Atkinson et al., 2018;de Jong and
Rigotti, 2019) and enhancing our theoretical understanding of the differential effects of PC
types under a controlled setting. Three, none of the few existing experimental studies on PC
has examined the differential effects of fulfillment/non-fulfillment of both transactional
psychological contract (TPC) and relational psychological contract (RPC) promises on
employees’breach perceptions, emotions, attitudes and behaviors. Hence, the current study
sheds light on this gap by exploring the interplay effect of fulfillment/non-fulfillment of TPC
Psychological
contract
promises
949
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