PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACT BREACH, JOB ATTITUDE AND BEHAVIOURS ACROSS CULTURES: A META-ANALYSIS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37435/NBR-20-0013Keywords:
Psychological contract breach, in role-performance, turnover intention, organizational commitment, counterproductive work behavioursAbstract
Abstract
Although research on psychological contract breach (PCB) has grown in
recent years, most of the studies have taken an individual-level perspective to
explain PCB effects on employee behavior, thereby overlooking the possibility
that the national cultural context might affect employee responses to
psychological contracts. This study, therefore, investigates whether employees
in various cultures react differently to psychological contract breaches.
Drawing on the GLOBE cultural framework, we expected that national
cultural practices moderate the relationship between PCB and a key work
attitude (such as organizational commitment) and job behaviors (i.e. in-role
performance, turnover intention, and counterproductive behaviours). Using
meta-analytic data from 176 studies, we found that the results largely support
our hypotheses. The study updates and expands prior meta-analyses on
psychological contracts and opens a new area of inquiry by showing that
cultural practices at the national level can influence the processes of how
psychological contract breaches affect employee behaviors at the individual
level.
References
Ambos, B., & Schlegelmilch, B. B. (2004). The use of international R & D teams: An empirical investigation
of selected contingency factors. Journal of World Business, 39, 37-48.
Aspinwall, L. G. (2005). The psychology of future-oriented thinking: From achievement to proactive
coping, adaptation, and aging. Motivation and Emotion, 29, 203-235.
Autio, E., Pathak, S., & Wennberg, K. (2013). Consequences of cultural practices for entrepreneurial
behaviors. Journal of International Business Studies, 44, 334-362.
Avital, M. (2000). Dealing with time in social inquiry: A tension between method and lived experience.
Organization Science, 11, 665-673.
Bal, P. M., De Lange, A. H., Jansen, P. G. W., & Van Der Velde, M. E. G. (2008). Psychological contract
breach and job attitudes: A meta-analysis of age as a moderator. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 72,
-158.
Bal, P. M., & Dóci, E. (2018). Neoliberal ideology in work and organizational psychology. European
Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology: in press.
Blau, P. (1964). Exchange and power in social life: 1-343. London & New York: Routledge.
Borman, W.C. and Motowidlo, S.J. (1997). Task performance and contextual performance: The meaning for
personnel selection research. Human Performance, 10, 99-109.
Cohen, A. B., & Hill, P. C. (2007). Religion as culture: Religious individualism and collectivism among
American Catholics, Jews, and Protestants. Journal of Personality, 75, 709-742.
Cohen, A., Wu, M., & Miller, J. (2016). Religion and culture: Individualism and collectivism in the East and
West. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. 47, 1236-1249.
Daniels, M., & Greguras, G. (2014). Exploring the nature of power distance: Implications for micro- and
macro-level theories, processes, and outcomes. Journal of Management, 40, 1202-1229.
Expectations: Does the Recession Lead to Lowered Expectations?. Journal of Business Psychology,
, 293 302.
Eder, A.B., & Hommel, B. (2013). Anticipatory Control of Approach and Avoidance: An Ideomotor
Approach. Emotion Review, 5(3):275-279.
Eder A. B., & Rothermund, K. (2013). Emotional action: An ideomotor model. In Mohiyeddini C., Eysenck
M. W., Bauer S., editors. (Eds.), Handbook of Psychology of Emotions (pp. 1138). Hauppauge, NY:
Nova Science.
Farh, J., Hackett, R., & Liang, J. (2007). Individual-level cultural values as moderators of perceived
organizational support-employee outcome relationships in China: Comparing the effects of power
distance and traditionality. Academy of Management Journal, 50, 715-729.
Fischer, R. & Mansell, A. (2009). Commitment across cultures: A meta-analytical approach. Journal of
International Business Studies, 40, 1339-1358.
Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E. (1984). Social cognition. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Frese, M. (2015). Cultural practices, norms and values. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 46, 1327-
Ford, B., & Mauss, I. (2015). Culture and emotion regulation. Current Opinion in Psychology, 3, 1-5.
Ghosh, A. (2011). Power distance in organizational contexts: A review of collectivist cultures. Indian
Journal of Industrial Relations, 47, 89-101.
Grandey, A., Rafaeli, R., Ravid, S., Wirtz, J., & Steiner, D. D. (2010). Emotion display rules at work in the
global service economy: The special case of the customer. Journal of Service Management, 21, 388-
Guest, D. E. (2004). The psychology of the employment relationship: An analysis based on the psychological
contract. International Association for Applied Psychology, 53, 541-555.
NBR
,1
Page 15
Gul, H., Usman, M., Liu, Y., Rehman, Z., & Jebran, K. (2018). Does the effect of power distance moderate
the relation between person environment fit and job satisfaction leading to job performance?
Evidence from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Future Business Journal, 4, 68- 83.
Grove, C. N. 2005. Introduction to the GLOBE research project on leadership worldwide.
Retrieved from: https://www.grovewell.com/wp-content/uploads/pub-GLOBE-intro.pdf
expressions during
a research interview. Views of highly educated Swedish young adults. Journal of Gender Studies,
, 304-317.
House, R., Hanges, P., Javidan, M., Dorfman, P., & Gupta, V. (2004). Culture, leadership, and
organizations. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Hunter, J. E., & Schmidt, F. L. (2004). Methods of Meta-Analysis: Correcting Error and Bias in Research
Findings (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Jackofsky, E. (1987). Turnover and job performance: An integrated process model. The Academy of
Management Review, 9, 73-84.
Jaramillo, F., Mulki, J. P., & Marshall, G. W. (2005). A meta-analysis of the relationship between
organizational commitment and salesperson job performance: 25 years of research. Journal of
Business Research, 58, 705-714.
Javidan, M., Dorfman, P., Sully De Luque, M., & House, R. J. (2006). In the eye of the beholder: Cross
cultural lessons in leadership from Project GLOBE. Academy of Management Executive, 20, 67-90.
Jayaweera, A.T., Bal, M., Chudzikowski, K., & De Jong, S. (2020). The impact of economic factors on the
relationships between psychological contract breach and work outcomes: A meta-analysis.
Employee Relations, (Accepted/In press).
Johns, G. (2018). Advances in the treatment of context in organizational research. Annual Review of
Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 5, 21-46.
Joshi, R. (1993). Gender differences in determinants of job performance. Indian Journal of Industrial
Relations, 28, 238-247.
Kalleberg AL, Nesheim T., & Olsen, K. M. (2009). Is participation good or bad for workers?: Effects of
autonomy, consultation and teamwork on stress among workers in Norway. Acta Sociologica,
(2):99-116.
Kimberly, S. (2013), Stress and performance in uncertainty-avoiding individuals: An introductory
literature review. Retrieved from: http://stars.library.ucf.edu/honor
Kossek EE, Su R., & Wu, L. (2017). perspectives on w
career equality for gender inclusion and interventions. Journal of Management, 43(1), 228-254.
Kraimer, M. L., Wayne, S. J., & Jaworski, R. A. (2001). Sources of support and expatriate performance: the
mediating role of expatriate adjustment Personnel Psychology. 54, 71-99.
Lazarus, R. S. (1999). Stress and emotion: A new synthesis. New York: Springer Publishing company.
Lim, N. (2016). Cultural differences in emotion: Differences in emotional arousal level between the East
and the West. Integrative Medicine Research, 5, 105-109.
Markus, Hazel & Kitayama, Shinobu. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and
motivation, Psychological Review, 98, 224-253.
Mesquita B. 2001. Emotions in collectivist and individualist contexts. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 80, 68-74.
Morrison, E. W., & Robinson, S. L. (1997). When employees feel betrayed: A model of how psychological
contract violation develops. Academy of Management Review, 226-256.
Nanda, R., & Sørensen, J. (2010). Workplace peers and entrepreneurship. Management Science, 56, 1116-
Orpen, C. (1995). "The effect of socialization tactics on career success and satisfaction: A longitudinal
International Journal of Commerce and Management, 5(4), 33-37.
Papademetriou, C., & Masouras, A. (2014). National culture underpins individual behaviour and workrelated-
values: The importance of nationality. Review of Decentralisation Local Government and
Regional Development, 77, 3-19.
Peretz, H., & Fried, Y. (2012). National cultures, performance appraisal practices, and organizational
absenteeism and turnover: A study across 21 countries. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97: 448-459.
Pettigrew, T. F. (1997). Generalized intergroup contact effects on prejudice. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 23(2),173-185.
Pudelko, M. (2006). Universalities, particularities, and singularities in cross-national management research.
International Studies of Management and Organization, 36, 9-37.
Quoidbach, J., Mikolajczak, M., & Gross, J. J. (2015). Positive interventions: An emotion regulation
perspective. Psychological Bulletin, 141, 655-693
.
NBR
,1
Page 16
Rafiei, S. & Pourreza, A. (2013). The moderating role of power distance on the relationship between
employee participation and outcome variables. International Health Policy Management, 1, 79-83.
Rahman, U. U., Rehman, C. A., Imran, M. K., & Aslam, U. (2017). Does team orientation matter? Linking
work engagement and relational psychological contract with performance. Journal of Management
Development, 36, 1102-1113.
Rispens, S., & Demerouti, E. (2016). Conflict at work, negative emotions, and performance: A diary study.
Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, 9, 103-119.
Rousseau, D. M., & Schalk, R. (2000). Psychological contracts in employment: Cross-national perspectives.
Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Sadowski, E., & Schranger, S. (2016). Achieving career satisfaction: Personal goal setting and prioritizing
for the clinician educator. Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 8, 494-497.
Scherer, K. R. (2009). The dynamic architecture of emotion: Evidence for the component process model.
Cognition and emotion, 23,1307-1351.
Schrager, S., & Sadowski, E. (2016). Getting More Done: Strategies to Increase Scholarly
Productivity. Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 8(1), 10 13.
Schyns, B., Torka, N., & Gössling, T. (2007). Turnover intention and preparedness for change: exploring
leader-member exchange and occupational self-efficacy as antecedents of two employability
predictors. Career development international, 12(7), 660-679.
Sturman, M. C., Shao, L., & Katz, J. H. (2012). The effect of culture on the curvilinear relationship between
performance and turnover. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(1), 46 62.
Thomas, D. C., Au, K., & Ravlin, E. C. (2003). Cultural variation and the psychological contract. Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 24, 451-471.
Thomas, D. C., Fitzsimmons, S. R., Ravlin, E. C., Au, K. Y., Ekelund, B. Z., & Barzantny, C. (2010). Psychological
contracts across cultures. Organizational Studies, 31,1437-1458.
Thommsdorff, G. (1983). Future orientation and socialization. International journal of psychology, 18, 381-
Turner, J., & Stets, J. (2005). The Sociology of Emotions. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Van Wely, M. (2014). The good, the bad and the ugly: Meta-analyses. Human Reproduction, 29, 1622 1626.
Zhao, H., Wayne, S. J., Glibkowski, B. C., & Bravo, J. (2007). The impact of psychological contract breach
on work-related outcomes: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 60, 647-680.