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The purpose of this paper is to examine relations between five individual differences variables (positive affectivity, negative affectivity, reciprocation wariness, equity sensitivity, and Protestant work ethic) and the perception of psychological contract breach (PCB), and whether those relations are mediated by perceived organizational support (POS).

A survey was administered to 234 professional (i.e. white‐collar) employees in the USA. Regression analyses were conducted to test the proposed relations and mediating hypotheses.

In line with the hypothesized predictions, the findings indicate that POS fully mediated the relations between four out of the five individual difference variables examined (i.e. positive affectivity, reciprocation wariness, equity sensitivity, Protestant work ethic) and perceived PCB. In addition, POS partially mediated the relation between negative affectivity and perceived PCB.

The use of a cross‐sectional, non‐experimental, design does not allow for conclusions to be drawn regarding causality and it is possible that the reported results may have been influenced by common method variance. Future research should examine additional individual differences and workplace contextual features.

Managers need to realize that some determinants of perceived PCB, and POS for that matter, are likely to be unrelated to organizational actions. Rather, perceived PCB and POS may result, in part, from an employee's individual characteristics.

This is the first study to provide empirical evidence that positive affectivity, negative affectivity, reciprocation wariness, equity sensitivity, and Protestant work ethic may predict the perception of PCB and that POS may mediate these relations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of psychological contract violation (PCV) as a mediating variable in the relations between psychological contract breach (PCB) and work‐related attitudes and behaviors. In addition, this study aims to expand the generalizability of psychological contract theories by examining service‐oriented employees rather than a population of managers as in most research on PCB.

A survey was administered to 196 service‐oriented employees working in the USA. Factor analyses (principal components, varimax rotation) were conducted on all the variables in the study to determine the factorial independence of the constructs. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted to test the main effects and mediating hypotheses.

The findings are consistent with the proposed mediation model of the study. PCV was found to fully mediate the relations between PCB and job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intentions to quit, perceived organizational support, service delivery, service‐oriented organizational citizenship behavior, and participation service‐oriented organizational citizenship behavior. PCV was found to partially mediate the relation between PCB and loyalty service‐oriented organizational citizenship behavior. PCV was not found to mediate the relation between PCB and in‐role job performance.

The use of a cross‐sectional non‐experimental design does not allow for definitive conclusions regarding causality and there is a possibility that the results may be influenced by common method variance.

Managers need to carefully consider and manage the psychological contracts of their subordinates from a cognitive perspective (PCB) and an affective perspective (PCV).

The paper empirically examines the PCB‐PCV Outcomes model using a sample of service‐oriented employees.

Using signaling theory and the literature on psychological contracts, the authors investigate how leaders' personalities shape their followers' perceptions of the type of psychological contract formed. They also suggest that leaders' personalities impact their followers' perceived contract breach. Furthermore, the authors propose that power distance orientation in organizations acts as an important boundary condition that enhances or exacerbates the relationships between personality and contract type and personality and perceived breach.

Data were collected through multiple sources in Pakistan from 456 employees employed in 102 bank branches. Multilevel moderated path analyses provided reasonably good support for our hypotheses.

The leaders' personalities impacted the relational contracts of their followers in the cases of extraversion and agreeableness, whereas neuroticism had a significant relationship with the followers' formation of transactional contracts. Similarly, agreeableness, neuroticism and conscientiousness had significant relationships with perceived breach. Finally, the power distance of the followers aggregated at a group level moderated the personality-contract type and personality-perceived breach relationships.

This research advances understanding of psychological contracts in organizations. More specifically, it shows that the personality of leader would have profound impact on the type of contract their employees form and the likelihood that would perceive the breach of contract.

This research extends existing personality-psychological contract literature by examining the role of leaders' personalities in signaling to employees the type of contract that is formed and the perception of its breach. The role of power distance organizational culture as a signaling environment is also considered.

The decrease in availability of mineral oils and their environmental hazards created the need to search for alternate bio-based oils. The aim of this study is to investigate the friction and wear characteristics of kapok (Ceiba pentandra) oil as a bio-lubricant.

The wear and friction characteristics between steel-steel contact under lubrication were found using a pin-on-disk tribometer under different loads and sliding speeds, respectively. The corrosion and oxidation stability of the test lubricants were also analyzed. The worn surfaces of the specimen are analyzed with the help of an optical microscope. The obtained results were compared with palm oil and mineral oil (SAE20W 40).

From the investigation, it is found that the kapok oil possess a lower coefficient of friction and wear rate than palm and mineral oil. It is also found that the coefficient of friction varies proportionally and the wear rate varies inversely with the sliding speed as expected.

The present results confirm that the kapok oil can be used as an alternative lubricant to reduce the demand for mineral-based oil lubricants.

This study seeks to examine the relationship between individual's cultural values of individualism, collectivism, selected personality traits and the psychological contracts they tend to form.

Surveys were used to collect data from China and US sample sets. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to explore the impact of selected cultural values and personality traits on individuals' tendency to form transactional contract or relational contract.

Personality characteristics of equity sensitivity and external locus of control were found to be positively related to transactional contract type for both samples, and conscientiousness was found to be positively related to relational contract, but the relationship was only found for the Chinese sample. The impact of the individualistic cultural value on the type of psychological contract one forms with the employer is uncertain, but the individualism value was found to have a mediator effect between age and transactional contract type for the Chinese sample.

The study contributes evidence that can help explain why employees who face the same job conditions and employment relationships may develop different psychological contracts with their employers. The finding on the mediating effect of individualism between age and transactional contract highlight challenges faced by managers in China's changing economy in terms of motivating and retaining young employees.

The study contributes to research on personality and psychological contracts. In the domain of personality, the study attempts to explore how personality affects organizational behavior. From the perspective of psychological contract, the paper contributes evidence that can help explain why employees who face the same job conditions and employment relationships may develop different psychological contracts with their employers.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationships between elements of the psychological contract (i.e. type and fulfilment) and an employee's intention to leave (ITL) their current organisation. The role of careerism as a potential mediating and moderating variable is also to be explored.

In total, 202 allied health professionals (AHPs) completed a questionnaire containing measures of the psychological contract, careerism and ITL.

As predicted, path analyses conducted via structural equation modelling demonstrated that careerism partially mediates the relationship between contract types and ITL. These findings suggest that employees with transactional contracts are more careerist, resulting in higher ITL, while employees with relational contracts are less careerist, resulting in lower ITL. Contrary to expectation, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that careerism failed to moderate the relationship between perceived contract fulfillment and ITL. However, a strong positive association between contract fulfillment and ITL was found.

The data were collected cross‐sectionally, which limits the ability to make causal inferences.

Results were consistent with the proposition that contract type and fulfillment explain employee ITL. It appears that employees with relational contracts are more likely to remain with their organization on a longer‐term basis, compared to employees with transactional contracts, due to differences in career motives. Organizational awareness and understanding of employee psychological contracts and career motives is needed.

This paper provides new theoretical and practical insights on how psychological contracts and careerism can influence ITL among AHPs.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of ethical leadership on two important employee extra-role behaviors; organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) and creative performance (CP). Drawing on social exchange and organizational support theories, psychological contract fulfillment (PCF) was proposed as the mediating mechanism explaining this relationship.

Data were collected via questionnaire from 248 employee-supervisor/colleague dyads employed in a large fast-moving consumer goods multinational company in Pakistan. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.

Supervisors’ ethical leadership style (ELS) was positively related to employees’ OCBs and CP. The predicted mediating role of PCF in the relationship between ELS and extra-role behaviors was also supported.

While it benefitted from dyadic data, a significant limitation of this study is the cross-sectional nature of the data. A noteworthy implication of the findings is the important role that supervisors’ ELS plays in employees’ behaviors within the organization. Furthermore, it appears that ethical leadership is a significant factor in employees’ evaluations of PCF and their ensuing behavioral responses.

This study contributes to addressing the inconsistent findings in prior research on ethical leadership. An additional novel contribution is that it identifies PCF as an underlying mechanism linking ethical leadership and employees’ extra-role behaviors.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the type of exchange relationship that small business owners establish with their employees. In particular, this study examines how the personality trait of “conscientiousness” among small business owners relates to relational “psychological contracts,” breach and violation that develop between owners and employees.

This was a quantitative survey design conducted in Canada. Participants were 253 employees and the 50 small firm owners for whom they worked.

Results indicate that owner conscientiousness was positively associated with a relational psychological contract with employees and perceived breach mediated a negative relationship between owner-rated relational contract obligations and feelings of contract violation among employees. Owner-rated relational contract obligations also mediated a negative relationship between owner conscientiousness and employee perceptions of breach and violation.

Given the link between conscientiousness and relational contracts, small business owners who get involved in selection and training ought to present to the newly hired employees an accurate picture of their role and job requirements in order to create successful organizations. In addition, less conscientious business owners, through training, should try to develop further skills, such as goal setting and performance appraisal, in order to increase their ability to establish effective relationships (i.e. relational contracts).

The current study is an initial attempt toward a better understanding of exchange relationships in small firms, thus strengthening the links between organizational behavior and small business research. It also contributes a quantitative perspective on issues that have typically been explored qualitatively.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the buffering effects of organizational virtuousness. More specifically, the study investigates employee reactions (job satisfaction, intent to quit and willingness to support the organization) to organizational virtuousness’ perceptions both in conditions without crisis and in conditions with crisis.

The paper adopts the experimental methodology to explore its main hypotheses and research question. The results of a field study are also presented in order to add generalizability to the experimental results. A post hoc qualitative analysis based on focus-group interviews sheds light on the above findings and enables their better understanding.

The results indicated that even during a financial crisis those perceiving higher organizational virtuousness expressed higher job satisfaction, lower intent to quit and higher willingness to support the organization compared to those perceiving lower organizational virtuousness. Organizational virtuousness’ perceptions have also been found to moderate (accentuate) the effects of the financial crisis on job satisfaction and intent to quit. Willingness to support the organization seems to be unaffected by the financial crisis.

Managers should be aware of how individuals respond to organizational virtuousness during conditions of financial crisis.

The study makes a unique contribution to the literature by being the first to investigate the effects of organizational virtuousness’ perceptions on employee reactions both pre- and during-financial crisis.