We are thankful for the support of the BB&T Program in Business Ethics at the University of Central Florida and the Gordon J. Barnett Memorial Foundation in conducting this research. We thank the editor, Ben Tepper, and three anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments concerning this manuscript. Furthermore, we thank Dawit Debssou for his help in the data collection effort.

SummaryResearch has emphasized the negative effects of organizations' broken promises and failed obligations on employee attitudes and behaviors. However, not all employees respond in the same manner. This paper integrates research on psychological contracts and psychological entitlement to examine how individuals with exceedingly high demands and expectations react to a perceived letdown by the organization. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, we argue that a psychological contract violation is associated with employee depressive mood states, which, in turn, influence the amount of citizenship behavior displayed. We further posit that psychological entitlement moderates the link between contract violation and depressive mood states. Using Hayes' PROCESS macro to assess a moderated mediation model, findings from a multisource field study support our predictions. This research contributes to the work on psychological contracts and psychological entitlement on multiple fronts. Suggestions for future research and practical implications for managers are discussed.

We extend the deontic model of justice (Folger, 1998, 2001) by arguing that not all employees respond to third-party injustices by experiencing an eye-for-an-eye retributive response; rather, some employees respond in ways that are higher in moral acceptance (e.g. increasing turnover intentions, engaging in constructive resistance). We predict that the positive relationship between supervisor abuse of customers and organizational deviance is weaker when employees are high in moral identity. In contrast, we hypothesize that the relationships between supervisor abuse of customers and turnover intentions and constructive resistance are more strongly positive when employees are high in moral identity. Regression results from two field studies ( N = 222 and N = 199, respectively) provide general support for our theoretical model.

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This article examines employee reactions to observing abusive supervision at work. Specifically, we integrate deonance theory with fairness theory and social cognitive theory to explore when and why employees who witness abuse toward a coworker engage in prosocial behavior intended to protect the victim. We first develop a moderated mediation model of prosocial responses to abuse, which identifies overall fairness as a first- and second-stage moderator, influencing the relationships between observed abusive supervision and observer deontic reactions and between deontic reactions and coworker protective behavior. Results from Study 1 support a model in which overall justice moderates the second link, indicating that fair norms and principles might prompt observers of abuse to direct their deontic anger toward coworker protective responses. Study 2 extends this work by further exploring the mediating mechanism by which overall fairness moderates the relationship between deontic anger and prosocial behavior for the coworker. Utilizing a critical incident technique, Study 2 reveals support for a mediated moderation model, indicating that the moderating effect of overall fairness occurs through its impact on ethical efficacy. These findings contribute to work on abusive supervision, third-party responses to injustice, and overall fairness by helping to better understand observer prosocial reactions to abusive supervision.