An event‐based approach to psychological contracts: The importance of examining everyday broken and fulfilled promises as discrete events

Abstract

Summary Psychological contract research has typically focused on employees' perceptions of whether the organization has generally fulfilled or broken its promises/obligations. However, employees can experience broken and fulfilled promises as discrete events on an everyday basis, which may have immediate implications for employees and also influence their generalized psychological contract. Integrating attribution and appraisal theories of emotions, we argue that discrete psychological contract events (i.e., specific instances of a broken or a fulfilled promise) can initiate attribution and appraisal processes that can guide employees' emotional and behavioral responses. Moreover, experiencing a broken versus a fulfilled promise can have distinct implications for employees' outcomes as well as their generalized perceptions of psychological contract fulfillment. Our hypotheses are generally supported using a daily diary study with event sampling. Theoretical contributions include the importance of (a) examining the attribution and appraisal processes underlying everyday discrete psychological contract events, (b) acknowledging distinctions between broken versus fulfilled promises, and (c) understanding how everyday broken/fulfilled promises can influence generalized perceptions of psychological contract fulfillment. Practical contributions include the importance of effectively managing broken and fulfilled promises on an everyday basis and ensuring that employees perceive that the organization does not break and also fulfills its promises.

Does voice endorsement by supervisors enhance or constrain voicer’s personal initiative? Countervailing effects via feeling pride and feeling envied.

“…In Study 2, we adopted an event-based daily ESM, whereby participants were asked to submit their momentary assessments once they received voice feedback from their supervisors (e.g., Barclay & Kiefer, 2019; Conway & Briner, 2002; Kiefer et al, 2022). By capturing the occurrence of voice feedback, we were able to effectively and efficiently investigate this event in ESM research, eliminating the necessity to track employees after they express their opinions.…”

“…To enhance the response rate and facilitate the data collection process, we sent a reminder to the participants who had not taken the Time 1 survey at 1 p.m. Central Time. Consistent with the event-based ESM research design (Kiefer et al, 2022), in our reminder, participants were instructed to wait and complete the survey only after they had received supervisory voice feedback. The Time 1 survey link was available until 6 p.m. Central Time.…”

Exploring self-regulation theory as a mechanism of the effects of psychological contract fulfillment: The role of emotional intelligence

“…Similarly, emotions play a significant role in the perceptions of fulfillment. PC fulfillment does not only create positive emotions, but it is more likely to be perceived where discrepancies do not generate negative emotions ( Kiefer et al, 2022 ), suggesting that PC fulfillment involves both perceptions and emotions ( Conway and Briner, 2002 ; Rousseau, 2011 ). Because of the important mediating role of affect in PC theory, a logical extension of these conclusions is that experiences of PC fulfillment should prevent individuals from experiencing negative emotions and exit cognitions, a result that has received meta-analytic support (e.g., Zhao et al, 2007 ).…”