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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).

An experimental field design was used with a sample of employees (N = 234) 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.

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, organizational commitment 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.

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.

Psychological contracts represent unofficial or informal expectations that an individual holds, most commonly applied to an employer–employee relationship. Understanding psychological contracts helps explain the consequences of unmet expectations, including increased budgetary slack and reduced audit quality. This chapter reviews and synthesizes accounting behavioral research that discusses psychological contracts and that was published in academic and practitioner journals in the areas of financial accounting, management accounting, auditing, taxes, non-profit organizations, accounting education, and the accounting profession itself. Despite the prevalence of psychological contracts in the workplace and the applicability to behavioral research, accounting literature remains limited regarding applications of psychological contracts. This chapter aggregates research across all areas of accounting to provide suggestions for use of psychological contracts in future research and thus create a connected research stream.

Overqualification is a growing concern for employers in many countries. The practice of mismatching employees and positions inevitably leads to an increase in organizational training and management costs. This study can not only further enrich the theoretical achievements in the field of human resource management, but can also provide a reference for enterprise managers on how to effectively stimulate employees' innovative behaviour.

503 questionnaire responses were analysed using SPSS 24.0 and Mplus 8.0.

It was concluded that, (1) perceived overqualification is negatively related to employees' innovation behaviour (β = −0.32, p < 0.001); (2) psychological contract breach and psychological distance partially mediate the relationship between perceived overqualification and employees' innovation behaviour. Among them, the mediating effect of psychological contract breach was −0.14 (p < 0.01), and that of psychological distance was −0.12 (p < 0.001); the chain-mediating effect of psychological contract breach and psychological distance was −0.09 (p < 0.01); (3) employment relationship atmosphere played a moderating role in the relationship between perceived overqualification and employees' innovation behaviour (β = 0.04, p < 0.01).

This study verifies the negative impact of perceived overqualification on employee innovation behaviour and reveals the mediating role of psychological factors between the two. It also discusses the moderating effect of employment relationship climate on the relationship between perceived overqualification and employees' innovation behaviour.

This paper aims to contribute empirical data to the under‐researched relationship between trust and the psychological contract.

A case study approach is used carrying out 41 interviews in three case study firms, adopting a critical incident technique (CIT).

Trust is present in all psychological contracts and its different bases, cognitive and affective, underpin transactional and relational obligations respectively.

A small‐scale study using CIT which identifies especially salient issues but is not necessarily exhaustive. Provides a base for more detailed study of the relationship.

Demonstrates the impact of the differing bases of trust on the employment relationship. This information could contribute to better managing the employment relationship.

There are few extant empirical data on this relationship and a contribution is made to debates on the role of trust within the psychological contract by providing detailed empirical data.

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.

This paper seeks to examine whether individual values are related to perceptions of psychological contracts and psychological contract breach when justice perceptions are taken into account.

The study sample comprised staff employees of one of the largest banks in Israel. The sample included 311 employees in the head office of this bank. Data were collected from the employees over a period of about three months.

The findings show a modest relationship between individual values and perceptions of a relational type of psychological contract. The findings show weaker relationships between the values, perceived transactional‐type contracts, and perceptions of contract breach.

The study relied upon a cross‐sectional design. Such a design consists of a single observation with no control groups, and so cannot be used to draw conclusions about causal relationships between the variables. In addition, the study examined only one professional group in one culture.

The significant relationship between conservation and self‐transcendence values and perceptions of relational‐type contracts suggests that organizations should take this into account when making hiring and human resource (HR) management decisions.

Few studies have examined how individual values relate to the type of psychological contract individuals perceive themselves involved in, or the way they perceive contract breach. Examining individual‐level values helps to elucidate the attitudes and behaviors of employees in the workplace.

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 the mediating effect of psychological contract breach on the relationship between job insecurity and counterproductive workplace behavior (CWB) and the moderating effect of employment status in this relationship.

Data were collected from 212 supervisor–subordinate dyads in a large Chinese state-owned air transportation group. AMOS 17.0 software was used to examine the hypothesized predictions and the theoretical model.

The results showed that psychological contract breach partially mediates the effect of job insecurity on CWB, including organizational counterproductive workplace behavior and interpersonal counterproductive workplace behavior. In addition, the relationships between job insecurity, psychological contract breach and CWB differ significantly between permanent workers and contract workers.

The present study provides a new insight into explaining the linkage between job insecurity and negative work behaviors as well as suggestions to managers on minimizing the harmful effects of job insecurity.

The primary purpose of this study was to explore the potential of religiosity in predicting employee psychological contracts. In addition, the moderating influence of work status on this variable's relationship with contract outcomes was examined. To minimize the influence of common method bias, a survey was administered to a sample of student employees (N = 172) on two separate occasions. Results provide evidence for the moderating role of work status on the association between religiosity and transactional contract orientation and some support for the theorized distinction between contract orientations of part‐time and full‐time employees. Findings are discussed in light of features unique to this sample and the measures used, providing directions for future research in this area.