This manifesto presents 10 recommendations for a sustainable future for the field of Work and Organizational Psychology. The manifesto is the result of an emerging movement around the Future of WOP (see www. futureofwop.com), which aims to bring together WOP-scholars committed to actively contribute to building a better future for our field. Our recommendations are intended to support both individuals and collectives to become actively engaged in co-creating the future of WOP together with us. Therefore, this manifesto is open and never "finished." It should continuously evolve, based on an ongoing debate around our professional values and behavior. This manifesto is meant, first of all, for ourselves as an academic community. Furthermore, it is also important for managers, decision makers, and other stakeholders and interested parties, such as students, governments and organizations, as we envision what the future of WOP could look like, and it is only through our collective efforts that we will be able to realize a sustainable future for all of us.
Previous research showed that perceptions of psychological contract (PC) breach have undesirable individual and organizational consequences. Surprisingly, the PC literature has paid little to no attention to the relationship between PC breach perceptions and stress. A better understanding of how PC breach may elicit stress seems crucial, given that stress plays a key role in employees' physical and mental well-being. Based on Conservation of Resources Theory, we suggest that PC breach perceptions represent a perceived loss of valued resources, subsequently leading employees to experience higher stress levels resulting from emerging negative emotions. Moreover, we suggest that this mediated relationship is moderated by initial levels of fatigue, due to fatigue lowering the personal resources necessary to cope with breach events. To tests our hypotheses, we analyzed the multilevel data we obtained from two experience sampling designs (Study 1: 51 Belgian employees; Study 2: 53 US employees). Note that the unit of analysis is “observations” rather than “respondents,” resulting in an effective sample size of 730 (Study 1) and 374 (Study 2) observations. In both studies, we found evidence for the mediating role of negative emotions in the PC breach—stress relationship. In the second study, we also found evidence for the moderating role of fatigue in the mediated PC breach—stress relationship. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
Background
Workplace stress carries considerable costs for the employees’ wellbeing and for the organization’s performance. Recent studies demonstrate that perceptions of psychological contract breach are a source of stress for employees. That is, when employees notice that their employer does not fulfil certain obligations, they will perceive that certain resources are threatened or lost, which in turn translates into increased stress. In this study, we zoom in on how stress unfolds in the aftermath of breach, dependent on the organization’s reaction to the breach. More specifically, we examined the influence of different types of social accounts (i.e., denial, apology, blaming and exonerating justification) on individuals’ stress resolution process using physiological (i.e., heart rate) and psychological (self-report) data.
Method
We used an experimental design in which we manipulated psychological contract breach and social account type. To test our hypotheses, we performed two sets of functional Principal Component Analyses: first to examine the effects of breach and second to examine the effects of social accounts.
Results
Our results indicate that breach elicits a physiological stress reaction, reflected in a short-lived increase in heart rate. However, no increase in the self-reported stress measure was found. Further, we did not find a significant effect of social accounts on the psychological and physiological recovery process.
Conclusions
The current research allows us to demonstrate that psychological contract breach will trigger a short-lived increase in heart rate. Further research is needed to better understand unfolding trajectories of physiological reactions to contract breach and the effect of social accounts as organizational recovery efforts.
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