But they promised! How psychological contracts influence the impact of felt violations on job-related anxiety and performance

Abstract

Purpose

This study unpacks the relationship between violations of organizational promises, as perceived by employees and their job performance, considering the mediating effects of job-related anxiety and moderating effects of psychological contract type.

Design/methodology/approach

Multi-source, multi-wave data were collected from employees and their supervisors in Pakistan.

Findings

Feelings of organizational betrayal may reduce job performance due to the higher anxiety that employees experience in their daily work. This mediating role of enhanced job-related anxiety in turn is stronger to the extent that employees believe that their psychological contract contains relational obligations but weaker when it contains transactional obligations.

Practical implications

The study gives organizational decision makers pertinent insights into how they can mitigate the risk that employees who are angry about broken organizational promises stay away from performance-enhancing work activities, namely, by managing the expectations that come along with psychological contracts. In so doing, they can avoid imposing dual harms on employees, from both a sense that they have been betrayed and the risk of lower performance ratings.

Originality/value

This study offers expanded insights into the process that underpins the translation of psychological contract violations into diminished job performance, by pinpointing the simultaneous roles of experienced job-related anxiety and beliefs about employer obligations.

Citation

De Clercq, D., Azeem, M.U. and Haq, I.U. (2021), "But they promised! How psychological contracts influence the impact of felt violations on job-related anxiety and performance", Personnel Review, Vol. 50 No. 2, pp. 648-666. https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-07-2019-0388