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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the moderating roles of future job expectations and efficacy beliefs in employees’ responses to unmet job expectations, i.e. emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction, and turnover intention. It also investigates whether and how work experience influences the interactive effects of unmet job expectations and efficacy beliefs on employees’ responses.

Data were collected from 227 employees from a wide range of sectors. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses.

The results showed that the relationships between unmet job expectations and emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction were stronger for employees with more positive future job expectations. In addition, efficacy beliefs moderated the relationship between unmet job expectations and turnover intention. For employees with more work experience, efficacy beliefs had a stronger moderating role in the relationship between unmet job expectations and the employees’ responses.

The common method variance might have inflated main effects at the expense of interaction effects. This study contributes to the understanding about the job expectations literature by demonstrating how individual-level factors moderate employees’ responses to unmet expectations.

The results suggest that organizations need to manage their employees’ future job expectations, especially when these employees have higher levels of self-efficacy and work experience.

This study is one of the first attempts to empirically explore how employees differ in their responses to unmet job expectations.

Drawing on sensemaking and emotion regulation research, the purpose of this paper is to reconceptualize core contributor withdrawal (CCW) in the context of online peer-production communities (OPPCs). To explain the underlying mechanisms that make core contributors withdraw from these communities, the authors propose a process theory of contributor withdrawal called the core contributor withdrawal theory (CCWT).

To support CCWT, a typology of unmet expectations of online communities is presented, which uncovers the cognitive and emotional processing involved. To illustrate the efficacy of CCWT, a case study of the English version of Wikipedia is provided as a representative OPPC.

CCWT identifies sensemaking and emotion regulation concerning contributors’ unmet expectations as causes of CCW from OPPCs, which first lead to declined expectations, burnout and psychological withdrawal and thereby to behavioral withdrawal.

CCWT clearly identifies how and why important participation transitions, such as from core contributor to less active contributor or non-contributor, take place. By adopting process theories, CCWT provides a nuanced explanation of the cognitive and affective events that take place before core contributors withdraw from OPPCs.

CCWT highlights the challenge of online communities shifting from recruiting new contributors to preventing loss of existing contributors in the maturity stage. Additionally, by identifying the underlying cognitive and affective processes that core contributors experience in response to unexpected events, communities can develop safeguards to prevent or correct cognitions and emotions that lead to withdrawal.

CCWT provides a theoretical framework that accounts for the negative cognitions and affects that lead to core contributors’ withdrawal from online communities. It furthers the understanding of what motivates contributing to and what leads to withdrawal from OPPC.

This chapter presents an investigation of the relationship between psychological entitlement and stress. Empirical and conceptual evidence is considered suggesting that Conservation of Resources (COR) theory may apply differently to employees with a heightened sense of entitlement. Using attribution and COR theory, a conceptual framework is offered predicting that entitlement is positively associated with subjective stress, based on the logic that psychologically entitled employees develop unjustifiably inflated levels of self-evaluative internal coping resources such as self-esteem and self-efficacy that promote unmet expectations. It is also proposed that political skill and the ability to manage perceptions of competency may attenuate this relationship. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the challenges associated with managing psychologically entitled employees.

The purpose of this exploratory, empirical study is to gain insight into repatriation experiences and repatriate turnover intention of employees from India and The Netherlands who either were or had been on international assignments in the respective countries.

Interviews were conducted with 25 Dutch and 30 Indian international assignees (IAs) and repatriates in both India and The Netherlands. Thematic analysis resulted in four themes: met and unmet expectations of career advancement opportunities; knowledge transfer and labour marketability; economic growth versus economic recession and alternative employment opportunities; and boundaryless careers: adventure and entrepreneurship.

Repatriate expectations about the use of knowledge, skills and abilities gained in the host country moderate the relationship between the macro-economic situation of the home country and repatriate attrition/retention, such that met expectations of Indian respondents decreased their intention to leave the organisation, even in a conducive macro-economic context with ample alternative employment opportunities. Unmet expectations of Dutch respondents increased their intention to leave the organisation, even in an unfavourable macro-economic context with few alternative employment opportunities.

The sample of Indian and Dutch IAs and repatriates may limit generalisation of the findings to samples from other countries with distinct cultural contexts and macro-economic conditions.

Global organisations that set realistic expectations about re-entry career opportunities for repatriates, facilitate knowledge transfer after repatriation, and adequately respond to boundaryless career ambitions of repatriates, can reduce repatriate turnover intention and attrition.

This study shows that repatriate attrition versus retention is embedded in the macro-economic context of the home country, leading to three types of career mobility upon completion of an international assignment: intra-organisational mobility; organisational boundary-crossing; and geographical boundary crossing.

Role congruity theory and gender stereotypes research suggests men are expected to engage in agentic behavior and women in communal behavior as leaders, and that role violation results in backlash. However, extant gender and leadership research does not directly measure expectations–behavior incongruence. Further, researchers have only considered one condition of role incongruence – display of counter-role behavior – and have not considered the outcomes of failing to exhibit role-congruent behavior. Additionally, few studies have examined outcomes for male leaders who violate gender role prescriptions. The present study aims to address these shortcomings by conducting a novel empirical test of role congruity theory.

This experimental study used polynomial regression to assess how followers evaluated leaders under conditions of incongruence between follower expectations for men and women leaders’ behavior and leaders’ actual behavior (i.e. exceeded and unmet expectations). Respondents read a fictional scenario describing a new male or female supervisor, rated their expectations for the leader’s agentic and communal behavior, read manipulated vignettes describing the leader’s subsequent behavior, rated their perceptions of these behaviors, and evaluated the leader.

Followers expected higher levels of communal behavior from the female than the male supervisor, but no differences were found in expectations for agentic behavior. Regardless of whether expectations were exceeded or unmet, supervisor gender did not moderate the effects of agentic or communal behavior expectations–perceptions incongruence on leader evaluations in polynomial regression analyses (i.e. male and female supervisors were not evaluated differently when displaying counter-role behavior or failing to display role-congruent behavior).

In addition to providing a novel, direct test of role congruity theory, the study highlighted a double standard in gender role-congruent behavior expectations of men and women leaders. Results failed to support role congruity theory, which has implications for the future of theory in this domain.

Studies of new employees’ socialization have gained importance in the fast food industry in view of the demand for high quality service in this increasingly competitive business environment. New employees in the industry are unique in terms of job expectations. The aim of this study was to investigate the unmet expectations of new employees, and the relationships between unmet expectations, job satisfaction and organizational commitment in the Hong Kong fast food industry. A sample of 203 employees from the industry was collected. The results show that expectations are normally unmet, and job characteristics, training and development, and compensation and fairness are related to satisfaction and commitment.

Researchers have long recognized that employee expectations play an important role in determining their levels of motivation. However, less is known about the relationship between newcomers’ expectations about their job and intrinsic motivation. Even more, there is limited empirical research on the underlying mechanisms that explain this relationship. Given the recent resurgence of interest concerning the construct of work-related boredom and drawing on several theoretical frameworks, the purpose of this paper is to address this gap by examining the mediating role of work-related boredom in the linkage between newcomers’ expectations and intrinsic motivation.

The current study utilized a snowball approach in order to garner a diverse sample of newcomers. To examine the present hypotheses, bootstrapping analysis and Sobel test were used.

The results showed that unmet expectations enhance work-related boredom which in turn affects intrinsic motivation.

Given the cross-sectional and mono-source design of the study, the results may suffer from causality and common method variance issues.

The present study provides novel insights into the psychological mediating mechanisms that explain the relationship between newcomers’ expectations about their job and their intrinsic motivation.

The authors wanted to analyze why bridge employees have such a poor experience of coming back to work from retirement. Morale and performance are often disappointing.

The authors studied the existing research using the framework of two theories – self-determination theory and psychological contract theory. Both theories suggest that unmet expectations have a detrimental effect on bridge employees' performance and mood. The authors analyze what the returning workers' motivations might be and why bosses might be so poor at satisfying them.

The previous research suggests that, apart from financial drivers, three factors are key. They are the need for personal fulfillment, the opportunity for mentoring the younger generation, and the need for meaningful social relationships. The research indicates that stereotypical views about older employees often hold organizations back from providing work that fulfills these needs.

Previous research has looked at the disappointing outcomes of bridge employment but has not analyzed why that might be the case. The authors of the present study use of the two theories to provide understanding of why bosses might be undermining the returning workers, who are often relegated to “non-standard” roles.

To introduce the presumed cultural similarity paradox as a possible explanation for the findings that adjusting to a culturally similar country is just as difficult as adjusting to a culturally dissimilar country. We provide a conceptual framework, enabling further understanding and research into this phenomenon.

Expatriates moving to a country that shares common characteristics may presume more cultural similarity and easier adjustment than is actually the case. During their stay abroad, expatriates may find that these expectations are not met. While the smaller cultural distance may facilitate adjustment, the undermet expectations inhibit adjustment and performance.

A first preliminary test compared Dutch expatriates in Belgium (culturally similar) and in China (culturally dissimilar). The expectations of cultural similarity and adjustment difficulty of the expatriates in Belgium were significantly more undermet than those of the expatriates in China and this had a negative influence on affective adjustment. The larger cultural distance of China was negatively related to intercultural adjustment. Better adjustment, both affective and intercultural, led to better job performance.

Future research should try to replicate and extend our findings to other cultural contexts.

Expatriates and their employers must consider and prepare for the increased chance of undermet expectations and the negative consequences this can have on adjustment and job performance, when moving to a culturally similar country.

Expatriates and their employers must consider and prepare for the increased chance of undermet expectations and the negative consequences this can have on adjustment and job performance, when moving to a culturally similar country.

This paper conceptualizes and provide a theoretical framework that should allow future research to empirically test the psychological process that occurs in this paradox, accommodate the contrasting effects of cultural distance and met expectations of cultural similarity and investigate which characteristics of countries lead expatriates to presume more cultural similarity than is the case.

Existing research on the early careers of graduates has provided some useful information but has also suffered from several limitations. It has not examined the full range of graduate experiences, nor has it investigated differences between organizations or stages in early career. Reports a study designed to overcome these and other limitations. Presents data concerning the reported experiences of 797 graduates in the first three years of their careers with eight substantial UK‐based recruiters of graduates. The most pervasive finding is that graduates’ experiences varied a great deal between organizations. Thus it is important for managers and researchers to evaluate individual organizations rather than using aggregated data. Nevertheless, some general statements can be made. Graduates felt their social relationships at work were harmonious, but this co‐existed with less than adequate performance feedback from bosses, and some negative opinions about colleagues. They tended to feel that career prospects in the organization were fairly attractive, but were unsure about exactly what paths were available, or how to get onto them. Graduates generally did not feel their work taxed their skills, but it nevertheless developed them, and offered considerable autonomy. Training courses were rated quite positively, but some doubt was expressed about the overall planning of training and development. Organizational systems were seen as neither helpful nor obstructive. Perceptions of the adequacy of pay and benefits varied greatly between companies. With increasing tenure, graduates’ work involved more decision making and supervision of others, but not more autonomy or visibility within the company. Training was perceived more positively in the first year than subsequently. Graduates did not become clearer about career paths with increasing tenure. Overall these results paint a complex and differentiated view of graduate experiences at work. Some trends identified in other work are confirmed, but others are not. Specific areas of concern are identified. The data provide a benchmark against which other organizations can be compared.