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The employee-organization relationship (EOR) has increasingly become a focal point for researchers in organizational behavior, human resource management, and industrial relations. Literature on the EOR has developed at both the individual – (e.g. psychological contracts) and the group and organizational-levels of analysis (e.g. employment relationships). Both sets of literatures are reviewed, and we argue for the need to integrate these literatures as a means for improving understanding of the EOR. Mechanisms for integrating these literatures are suggested. A subsequent discussion of contextual effects on the EOR follows in which we suggest that researchers develop models that explicitly incorporate context. We then examine a number of theoretical lenses to explain various attributes of the EOR such as the dynamism and fairness of the exchange, and new ways of understanding the exchange including positive functional relationships and integrative negotiations. The article concludes with a discussion of future research needed on the EOR.

This study aims to extend the literature on psychological contracts, employee mental health, self-control and equity sensitivity among employees in Ghana.

Data for this study came from a sample of 484 employees from an organisation in the telecommunication sector of Ghana. The details of the study were discussed with employees after which they were given the choice to participate in the study.

The present study found that psychological contract breach is directly associated with mental health and indirectly related to mental health through equity sensitivity and self-control.

The findings suggest that psychological contracts are important aspects of the employment relationship that could be used to enhance employee mental health. Furthermore, enhancing employees’ self-control and resolving issues of individuals high on equity sensitivity are effective ways that organisations can deploy to sustain mental health in the face of psychological contract breaches.

Counterproductive work behavior (CWB) has grown into a significant problem in the tourism industry, for both individual employees and organizations. Employees who feel ostracized in their workplace often engage in negative and disruptive behaviors. The purpose of this study is to explore the psychological mechanism between workplace ostracism and CWB among tourism employees.

Drawing on psychological contract theory and social cognitive theory, the study proposed a research framework to explain tourism employees’ counterproductive behavior. Data were collected from 228 hotel employees at two time points in Huangshan, China. Hierarchical regression and SPSS-PROCESS Macro were used to test all the hypotheses.

Findings show that workplace ostracism significantly increases employee CWB, mediated by psychological contract violation. Workplace ostracism increases perceptions of psychological contract violation when employee self-esteem is higher. The mediating effect of psychological contract violation is also moderated by self-esteem.

Using the framework of psychological contract theory and social cognitive theory, the authors advance the organizational behavior literature in the tourism field. The authors contextualize the uniqueness of Chinese workplace behavior and highlight the need to understand “losing face (mianzi) view” in workplace relationships. This research contributes to better understanding the dark side of tourism workplace behavior by examining the effects of psychological contract violation and employee’s self-esteem on workplace ostracism and CWB.

旅游业中的反生产行为（CWB）已经成为一个重要问题, 反生产行为对员工和组织都会产生影响。在工作场所感到被排斥的员工往往会从事消极和破坏性的行为。本文的目的是研究旅游业员工工作场所排斥与反生产行为之间的心理机制。

基于心理契约理论和社会认知理论, 本研究提出了一个研究框架来解释旅游业员工的反生产行为发生机制。我们在中国黄山景区对228名酒店员工进行了两个时间点的问卷调查。采用分层回归和SPSS PROCESS Macro来测试所有假设。

结果表明 工作场所排斥显著增加员工反生产行为, 心理契约违背在其中起着中介作用。当员工自尊心较高时, 职场排斥对心理契约违反的感知影响更强。心理契约违背的中介效应也受到自尊心的调节。

我们运用心理契约理论和社会认知理论的框架, 推动了旅游领域的组织行为研究进展。我们讨论了中国情境下职场行为的独特性, 并强调在职场关系中需要考虑“面子观”。我们通过展示心理契约违背和员工自尊心对工作场所排斥和反生产行为（CWB）的影响, 有助于更好地理解旅游工作场所行为的负面影响。

El comportamiento laboral contraproducente (CLC) en la industria turística se ha convertido en un problema significativo tanto para los empleados individuales como para las organizaciones. Los empleados que se sienten marginados en su lugar de trabajo suelen participar en comportamientos negativos y disruptivos. El objetivo de este trabajo es examinar los efectos de la violación del contrato psicológico y la autoestima del empleado en el ostracismo en el lugar de trabajo y en el comportamiento laboral contraproducente CLC y agregar nuevos conocimientos para comprender mejor el lado oscuro del comportamiento laboral turístico.

Realizamos una encuesta de cuestionario a 228 empleados de hotel en dos momentos en Huangshan, China. Se utilizaron la regresión jerárquica y el SPSS PROCESS Macro para probar todas las hipótesis.

Los resultados muestran que 1) el ostracismo en el lugar de trabajo aumenta significativamente la CLC de los empleados. 2) La violación psicológica del contrato juega un papel mediador entre el ostracismo en el lugar de trabajo y CLC. 3) El ostracismo en el lugar de trabajo aumenta las percepciones de violación psicológica del contrato cuando la autoestima de los empleados es mayor. 4) El efecto mediador de la violación psicológica del contrato también es moderado por la autoestima.

Utilizando el marco de la teoría del contrato psicológico y la teoría cognitiva social, avanzamos en la literatura del comportamiento organizacional en el campo del turismo. Contextualizamos la singularidad del comportamiento en el lugar de trabajo chino y destacamos la necesidad de comprender la 'pérdida de la visión de la cara (mianzi)' en las relaciones laborales. Esta investigación contribuye con nuevos conocimientos para comprender mejor el lado oscuro del comportamiento turístico en el lugar de trabajo al examinar los efectos de la violación psicológica del contrato y la autoestima de los empleados en el ostracismo en el lugar de trabajo.

The study examined the relationship between human resource (HR) signals and intent to stay (ITS) in an attributional framework. It also investigated the mediating role of psychological contract fulfillment in the relationship between the strength of HR signal and ITS.

The data were collected from 460 managers in the manufacturing sector from eastern India using a structured questionnaire. The study adopted a mediated structural equation model to test the model fit and hypotheses.

The study confirmed the relationship between the strength of the H R signal and the ITS, and the mediating role of psychological contract fulfillment between the strengths of HR signals and ITS. The study indicates a positive role of the psychological contract fulfillment in strengthening the effect of HR signals on ITS.

The study adds to the body of knowledge by confirming a signaling role of HR practices within the firm having the attributional ability. It also indicates the role of psychological contract fulfillment in employee retention.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the quality of change information influences employees’ attitude toward organizational change and turnover intention. Additionally, the role of engagement, psychological contract fulfillment and trust in the relationship between change information and attitude toward change is assessed.

In a technology services organization that was implementing a “new way of working,” questionnaire data of 669 employees were gathered. The organizational change in question sought to increase employees’ autonomy by increasing management support and improving IT support to facilitate working at other locations (e.g. at home) or at hours outside of regular working hours (e.g. in evening).

The results showed that change information was positively related to psychological contract fulfillment and attitude toward change. Engagement and psychological contract fulfillment were positively related to attitude toward change and negatively related to turnover intention. Contrary to what was expected, trust did not influence attitude toward change but was negatively related to turnover intention.

The study presents a model that can help management to foster positive affective, behavioral, and cognitive responses to change, as well as to reduce employee turnover. Fulfilling employees’ psychological contracts and cultivating engagement is important in this respect, as well as continuously considering whether information about the organizational change is received in good time, is useful, is adequate and satisfies employees’ questions about the change.

As one of the first studies in its field, attitude toward change was conceptualized and operationalized as a multidimensional construct, comprising an affective, a behavioral and a cognitive dimension.

Most research on employment relationship has been done on the Anglo‐Saxon context, the results of which may not be totally valid for India. The emerging employment relationship in India is best viewed through the lens of psychological contracts. Psychological contract has significant influence on valuable workplace outcomes. This paper seeks to propose a model for understanding employment relationship through the concept of psychological contracts.

With the help of published case studies in the Indian context and based on social exchange theory, this paper proposes a model wherein trust mediates the relationship between the perception of breach of the psychological contract and HR systems.

As more and more employees come under non‐unionized workforce, the non‐formal aspects of employment through the lens of psychological contracts becomes an important lever to manage employment relationships. The model presented in this paper suggests that depending on the HR system an organization adopts, the perception of breach of psychological contract gets affected. Based on the notion of consistency of HR practices, it is argued that HR systems across organizations form two archetypal extremes and each of these give rise to a different perception of breach of psychological contract.

As HR managers are faced with a range of choices in implementing HR systems, it becomes difficult to narrow down the available options. This study would provide some guidelines to do so, by highlighting the process through which HR systems impact the perception of breach of psychological contracts and the resulting employment relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of three components of the psychological contract (i.e. obligations, fulfillment and breach) and the individual characteristic negative affectivity (NA) onto three key outcomes, namely, job satisfaction, organizational identification and psychological distress.

Questionnaires were completed by 222 Australian nurses and midwives from a medium-sized metropolitan Australian hospital. The response rate for the study was 39 percent.

Structural equation modeling revealed that perceptions of psychological contract fulfillment were positively linked to organizational identification and job satisfaction, while psychological contract breach was negatively linked to these outcomes. NA was negatively linked to job satisfaction and positively linked to psychological distress. Psychological contract obligations were not associated with any of the employee outcomes.

Psychological contract fulfillment is an important driver of employee satisfaction and organizational identification and the findings highlight the importance of including NA in psychological contract research. The occupation and context, being in-demand employees, appeared to neutralize the impact of one dimension of the psychological contract, employer promises and obligations.

Explicitly managing employees’ psychological contracts by focussing on fulfilling realistic promises will enable managers to improve employee outcomes and facilitate employees embracing their organization.

This study is one of the first to explore all three components of the psychological contract. These results may assist in the development of strategies to retain in-demand employees such as nurses, particularly highlighting the need to make and fulfill realistic promises.

Based on exchange theory and the generalized norm of reciprocity, psychological contracts perceived by employees are believed to have dysfunctional consequences for organizations if breached. This paper aims to study the willingness of employees to report fraud, as such is an important aspect of internal control for organizations.

A 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment was conducted in which 99 participants with diverse accounting backgrounds were first asked questions about their preconceived beliefs (psychological contract) regarding how reports of unethical conduct would be managed, and their reaction if these beliefs were broken (psychological contract violation). Participants were given a hypothetical situation of fraud and then asked to indicate their likelihood of reporting fraud to a supervisor.

The main hypotheses are that employees will be less likely to report fraud when the organization fails to signal the presence of a positive ethical environment or when management reacts weakly to previous reports of unethical activity. The data and findings support these hypotheses. Additional testing also reveals that a psychological contract violation mediates the relationship between the outcome of previous reports and the intention to report fraud.

As with any experimental study, this study’s results come with limitations. Reading an overly simplistic scenario that omits real world details and providing intention to report is very different from actually reporting fraud in one’s own place of employment. Therefore, reporting intentions may vary from actual reporting behavior. Further, reporting motivation (self-defense, altruism, etc.) and concern over retaliation are not measured.

Employees have expectations surrounding ethical corporate environments. Psychological contract violations occur as a result of broken expectations and are common in the workforce. In this study, a breakdown in the internal control environment because of a poor ethical culture, caused an even greater breakdown in internal controls because of employees’ decreased reporting intentions.

Psychological contract violations impact employees’ intention to report fraud. These violations need to be understood so that additional measures and safeguards can be instituted when employees are not acting as a fraud defense or detection mechanism. During such times when there is a breakdown in this type of internal control (that is, when employees might be hesitant to report fraud), extra safeguards against fraud, additional procedures to detect fraud, and enhanced employee training encouraging reporting of suspected unethical conduct, become even more important.

Strong experimental methods provide a rigorous way to evaluate a problem of our day: job insecurity caused by rampant organizational turbulence. The hidden cost is expressed in terms of how less can be expected of employees as a first line of defense against fraud.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how frequency of change (FC) in organizations and impact of change (IC) influence the employee behaviors, i.e. exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect (EVLN) through psychological contract fulfillment (PCF) as a mediator. The moderating role of successful past changes (SPC) is also assessed with direct and indirect relations of FC, and IC alongside employees’ behaviors.

Hypotheses were tested among a sample of 398 financial services-oriented non-managerial-level employees in Pakistan. Bootstrapped moderated mediation analyses (using PROCESS macro) were conducted to test the main and moderated mediation effects. The authors ran series of confirmatory factor analyses to validate the distinctiveness of variables and their items in this study.

The results largely supported the hypotheses. Findings showed that FC is negatively related to loyalty but positively related to exit, voice, and neglect behaviors via contract fulfillment. IC is also found to have negatively related to loyalty but positively related to exit, voice, and neglect via PCF. SPC was found to moderate the relation between FC, IC, and contract fulfillment, as well as the indirect relationship with exit, voice, and neglect through contract fulfillment and negatively between FC, IC, and loyalty through contract fulfillment. The authors found direct interaction effects of FC via SPC in relation to exit and loyalty and also found direct interaction effects of IC via SPC to exit, voice, and loyalty.

The use of cross-sectional research design does not allow conclusions with respect to causality. The most important implication of the study is that employee behaviors following organizational change can best be understood via a psychological contract framework. A future suggestion is to include more organizations based on longitudinal research design with focus on both employee and employer perspective.

This study highlights the importance of employees’ behavioral responses and their sensemaking of PCF in a post-organizational change period.

This study empirically investigated the effects of FC, and IC on fulfillment of psychological contract and behavioral responses of employees using a sample of non-managerial employees, and provides new insights into employee behaviors following organizational changes.