Simon Lloyd D. Restubog

When Employees Strike Back: Investigating Mediating Mechanisms Between Psychological Contract Breach and Workplace Deviance

In this article, psychological contract breach, revenge, and workplace deviance are brought together to identify the cognitive, affective, and motivational underpinnings of workplace deviance. On the basis of S. L. Robinson and R. J. Bennetts (1997) model of workplace deviance, the authors proposed that breach (a cognitive appraisal) and violation (an affective response) initiate revenge seeking. Motivated by revenge, employees then engage in workplace deviance. Three studies tested these ideas. All of the studies supported the hypothesized relationships. In addition, self-control was found to be a moderator of the relationship between revenge cognitions and deviant acts; the relationship was weaker for people high in self-control.

Effects of psychological contract breach on performance of IT employees: The mediating role of affective commitment

In this study, we investigated the relationships between psychological contract breach, affective commitment, and two types of employee performance (i.e. civic virtue behaviour and in-role performance). It was predicted that an experience of contract breach can severely hurt the affective commitment of the employees and this, in turn, results in poor in-role performance and less civic virtue behaviours. Results revealed that affective commitment had differential mediating effects on the two types of employee performance. That is, affective commitment mediated the relationship between breach and self-reported and supervisor-rated civic virtue, but not the relationship between breach and in-role performance.

When distress hits home: the role of contextual factors and psychological distress in predicting employees' responses to abusive supervision.

We developed a model of the relationships among aggressive norms, abusive supervision, psychological distress, family undermining, and supervisor-directed deviance. We tested the model in 2 studies using multisource data: a 3-wave investigation of 184 full-time employees (Study 1) and a 2-wave investigation of 188 restaurant workers (Study 2). Results revealed that (a) abusive supervision mediated the relationship between aggressive norms and psychological distress, (b) psychological distress mediated the effects of abusive supervision on spouse undermining, (c) abusive supervision had a direct positive relationship with supervisor-directed deviance, (d) the positive relationship between psychological distress and spouse undermining was stronger for men as opposed to women, and (e) employees engaged in relationship-oriented occupations reported greater levels of abusive supervision and psychological distress. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Blaming the Organization for Abusive Supervision: The Roles of Perceived Organizational Support and Supervisor's Organizational Embodiment

Why do employees who experience abusive supervision retaliate against the organization? We apply organizational support theory to propose that employees hold the organization partly responsible for abusive supervision. Depending on the extent to which employees identify the supervisor with the organization (i.e., supervisors organizational embodiment), we expected abusive supervision to be associated with low perceived organizational support (POS) and consequently with retribution against the organization. Across 3 samples, we found that abusive supervision was associated with decreased POS as moderated by supervisors organizational embodiment. In turn, reduced POS was related to heightened counterproductive work behavior directed against the organization and lowered in-role and extra-role performance. These findings suggest that employees partly attribute abusive supervision to negative valuation by the organization and, consequently, behave negatively toward and withhold positive contributions to it.

Behavioural Outcomes of Psychological Contract Breach in a Non-Western Culture: The Moderating Role of Equity Sensitivity

This study tests the effects of psychological contract breach on several employee outcomes: workplace deviant behaviours directed at the organization (WD-O) and its organizational members (WD-I), in-role performance, and organizational citizenship behaviours directed at the organization (OCB-O) and its co-workers (OCB-I). It also examines the moderating effects of equity sensitivity in the relationship between breach and these outcomes. Data were collected from 162 sales executives and their direct supervisors. We found that breach was related to all behavioural outcomes. Equity sensitivity and breach also interacted in predicting OCB-I, OCB-O and WD-I. The negative relationships between breach and OCB-O and OCB-I were stronger for employees with an outcome-focused approach to organizational relationships than for those with an input-focused approach. In addition, breach had stronger positive effects on WD-I especially for those individuals who are output-oriented compared to those who are input-focused.

The Impact of Change Process and Context on Change Reactions and Turnover During a Merger

The authors examined relationships among two measures of the change process adopted by a firm and a measure of the change context and employees’ reactions to a merger. A longitudinal study was conducted. An employee’s perception that he or she had a poor change history was negatively associated with affective commitment to change. As the number of formal change information sessions attended increased, anxiety decreased. High quality change information was negatively associated with anxiety and positively related to affective commitment to change. Affective commitment was positively associated with job satisfaction and negatively associated with turnover intentions, which were positively associated with voluntary turnover.

Haunted by the Past: Effects of Poor Change Management History on Employee Attitudes and Turnover

Change management research has largely ignored the effects of organizational change management history in shaping employee attitudes and behavior. This article develops and tests a model of the effects of poor change management history (PCMH) on employee attitudes (trust, job satisfaction, turnover intentions, change cynicism, and openness to change) and actual turnover. We found that PCMH, through PCMH beliefs, led to lower trust, job satisfaction and openness to change, and higher cynicism and turnover intentions. Also, PCMH beliefs predicted employee turnover over 2 years.

Consequences of Workplace Bullying on Employee Identification and Satisfaction Among Australians and Singaporeans

This study responds to the call for cross-cultural investigations of workplace bullying by examining the relationship between workplace bullying and attitudes among employees from two countries. The authors argue that employees from societies that are less inclined to accept that power differences exist as a result of structure (low power distance countries, e.g., Australia) will respond to workplace bullying more negatively than will employees from cultures that accept that power differences exist as a result of structure (high power distance, e.g., Singapore). In all, 165 Singaporean and 152 Australian employees completed surveys designed to assess workplace bullying, workgroup identification, and job satisfaction. Results showed that workplace bullying was negatively related to both workgroup identification and job satisfaction among employees from both countries. Moreover, national culture influenced the relationship between bullying and job satisfaction and workgroup identification such that the negative relationships between bullying and these attitudinal outcomes were stronger for Australians than Singaporeans.

Investigating the Moderating Effects of Leader–Member Exchange in the Psychological Contract Breach–Employee Performance Relationship: A Test of Two Competing Perspectives

Leader–member exchange (LMX) has been characterized as a form of social support capable of buffering the effects of negative work experiences. However, employees with high-quality relationships with leaders in the organization may have stronger negative reactions when psychological contracts are breached. Thus, while a social support perspective would suggest that LMX minimizes the adverse impact of psychological contract breach on employee performance, a betrayal perspective proposes that high LMX would aggravate the negative effects. Using cross-sectional and longitudinal research designs, results across three samples provided support for the betrayal perspective. That is, breach had a stronger negative relationship with organizational citizenship behaviours and in-role performance under conditions of high LMX. Implications of these results and future research directions are discussed.

A Social Exchange-Based Model of the Antecedents of Workplace Exclusion

We conducted 2 studies of coworker dyads to test a theoretical model exploring why and under what circumstances employees are the targets of workplace exclusion. Adopting a victim precipitation perspective, we integrate belongingness and social exchange theories to propose that employees who display workplace incivility are distrusted and therefore are targets of workplace exclusion. Highlighting the importance of the context of the perpetrator-target relationship, we also find support for the postulation that this mediated relationship is strengthened when the target employee is perceived to be a weak exchange partner and is attenuated when he or she is viewed as a valuable exchange partner. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.