Business ideologies and perceived breach of contract during downsizing: the role of the ideology of employee self‐reliance

Abstract

SummaryThis paper represents an initial effort to explore the empirical relationship between business ideologies and perceptions of organizational downsizing. The results of four studies, two conducted in the US and one each in Singapore and Korea, suggest that respondents' belief in the ideology of employee self-reliance reduces the degree to which they perceive layoffs as a breach of the psychological contract. This finding appears to generalize to respondents' perceptions of their own layoffs and also to respondents' perceptions of layoffs happening to others. We spell out the implications of these results for the evolving theory of the ideological foundations of perceptions of downsizing.

Exploring civic virtue and turnover intention during organizational changes

“…In particular, following other researchers (Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler, 2002;Edwards et al, 2003), employees assessed at the same time organizational promises and provisions. A longitudinal study could help towards establishing causality among the study variables, but according to Morrison and Robinson (1997), psychological contract perception may vary at different times.…”

Entlassungen: Gerechtigkeitsempfinden und Folgewirkungen.

“…Zudem wurde ermittelt, dass Maßnahmen auch dann als ungerecht empfunden werden, wenn Unternehmen sich nicht hinreichend um Vermeidungen (etwa durch Umbesetzungen) bemühten oder wenn sie im Falle von Entlassungen nicht ausreichend für die Ausgeschiedenen sorgten (etwa durch zusätzliche Abfindungen). Empirisch ermittelte Folgereaktionen sind eine Abnahme des Engagements (Berner 1999;Brockner 1988;Edwards et al 2003;Robinson 1996;Rousseau 1995;Rousseau/Anton 1988), eine verschlechterte Zusammenarbeit (Berner 1999;Rousseau 1995) sowie eine Zunahme freiwilliger Kündigungen bei zunächst verblieben Beschäftigten (Brockner 1988;Edwards et al 2003;Robinson 1996;Rousseau/Anton 1988).…”

Layoff victim's employment relationship with a new employer in Korea: effects of unmet tenure expectations on trust and psychological contract

“…Much has been written in the downsizing literature about the 'survivor syndrome' and the effects of layoffs on survivors (Brockner, Grover, and Blander 1988;Brockner 1992;Brockner, Tyler, and Cooper-Schneider 1992;Bies, Martin, and Brockner 1993;Mishra and Spreitzer 1998). Similarly, studies that investigate the effects of downsizing on psychological contracts have largely focused on survivors of downsizing (Rousseau and Aquino 1993;Edwards, Rust, McKinley and Moon 2003).…”