A study of employee affective organisational commitment and retention in Pakistan: the roles of psychological contract breach and norms of reciprocity

Samina Quratulain, Abdul Karim Khan, Jonathan R. Crawshaw*, Ghulam Ali Arain, Imran Hameed

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Social exchange theory and notions of reciprocity have long been assumed to explain the relationship between psychological contract breach and important employee outcomes. To date, however, there has been no explicit testing of these assumptions. This research, therefore, explores the mediating role of negative, generalized, and balanced reciprocity, in the relationships between psychological contract breach and employees’ affective organizational commitment and turnover intentions. A survey of 247 Pakistani employees of a large public university was analyzed using structural equation modeling and bootstrapping techniques, and provided excellent support for our model. As predicted, psychological contract breach was positively related to negative reciprocity norms and negatively related to generalized and balanced reciprocity norms. Negative and generalized (but not balanced) reciprocity were negatively and positively (respectively) related to employees’ affective organizational commitment and fully mediated the relationship between psychological contract breach and affective organizational commitment. Moreover, affective organizational commitment fully mediated the relationship between generalized and negative reciprocity and employees’ turnover intentions. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2552-2579
JournalInternational Journal of Human Resource Management
Volume29
Issue number17
Early online date16 Nov 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2018

Bibliographical note

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal of Human Resource Management on 16/11/2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09585192.2016.1254099

Keywords

  • psychological contract breach
  • reciprocity norms
  • social exchange
  • Pakistan

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