Psychological contract breach: Unraveling the dark side of business-to-business relationships

Alvina Gillani, Smirti Kutaula and Pawan S. Budhwar

Journal of Business Research, 2021, vol. 134, issue C, 631-641

Abstract: While there is an increasing awareness of the importance of developing successful business-to-business relationships, little research has explored the dark side of these relationships. We drew upon the concept of psychological contract, underpinned by social exchange theory to examine breach and the dark side of business-to-business relationships. We conducted in-depth interviews with 24 consultants in the UK and found that breach could take varying forms, resulting in differing levels of intensity of the dark side. The four theoretical categories of breach were classified as minor infractions, negative disruptions, intensified adverse events, and intolerable transgressions, which correspond to low, moderate, high, and very high levels of the dark side of business-to-business relationships, respectively. The dark side behavioral outcomes were identified as self-adjusting, renegotiating, escalating, and departing. We develop a set of research propositions, integrating and extending the business-to-business and psychological contract literature. We also highlight key implications for theory and practice.

Keywords: Business-to-business relationship; Dark side; Psychological contract breach; Social exchange theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014829632100415X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:134:y:2021:i:c:p:631-641

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.06.008

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().