We are in this together: Group psychological contracts, breach, and outcomes

Abstract

For nearly two decades, researchers have often turned to the psychological contract as a framework for examining employer-employee relations. During this time, they have largely focused on examining the perceived obligations of employers to employees and the consequences of psychological contract breach (i.e., instances in which employees feel like the employer has failed to live up to its obligations). In this dissertation, I intend to integrate coworkers into the framework of reciprocal obligations and to introduce a new construct--namely, the "group psychological contract." To do this, I develop a model outlining the antecedents of the group-level psychological contract. The model also considers both the group- and individual-level outcomes of group psychological contract breach.

Specifically, this model identifies two key antecedents of group psychological contracts: human resource practices (e.g., recruitment, performance appraisal, socialization, and information given to the employee) and group composition (e.g., size, tenure in the group, demographic differences, personality trait diversity, and individualism/collectivism level of the group). Then, drawing upon relative deprivation theory, the model addresses the feelings of fraternal deprivation which result from breach of the group psychological contract. Next, the consequences of fraternal deprivation (e.g., cohesiveness, group conflict, and citizenship behaviors) are discussed.

In addition to these group-level outcomes, the model also describes the influence of group psychological contract breach on individual psychological contract breach. First, this research investigates how group psychological contract breach contributes to feelings of breach at the individual level. Then, the role of individual perceptions of group contract breach as a moderator of the relationship between group and individual psychological contract breaches is considered; specifically, the proposed model predicts that greater individual perceptions of group contract breach will increase the likelihood that group members who experience breaches in the group psychological contract will also experience individual psychological contract breaches. Further, when employees experience individual contract breach, the model proposes that employees will experience egoistic deprivation, which will result in certain individual-level consequences (e.g., citizenship behaviors, job stress, voice behavior, and dysfunctional group behaviors). Finally, I discuss the implications of this study and directions for future research.