You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours: Unethical pro-organizational behavior and deviance in response to different psychological contract states

Yannick Griep, Johannes M. Kraak, Jesse Fenneman, Alfredo Jiménez and Xander D. Lub

Journal of Business Research, 2023, vol. 156, issue C

Abstract: In this multi-study paper, we integrate Social Exchange Theory and the discretionary workplace behavior literature. Specifically, we posit that by breaching their psychological contract (PC) obligations, organizations may trigger negative reciprocity, which in turn may increase deviant behavior. Moreover, we posit that by fulfilling their legitimately PC obligations, organizations may trigger positive reciprocity, which in turn may increase unethical pro-organizational behavior. Across two studies (3-wave field study with traditional breach measure and 2-wave field study with expanded breach measure and polynomial regression), we found repeated evidence for our hypotheses. Specifically, we found that PC breach (Study 1) and PC under-fulfillment (Study 2) are positively related to the enactment of organizational deviance via negative reciprocity. Furthermore, we found that PC fulfillment (Study 1) and high absolute levels of PC fulfillment (Study 2) are positively related to unethical pro-organizational behavior via positive reciprocity. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Keywords: Psychological contract; Fulfillment; Breach; Deviance; Unethical pro-organizational behavior; Polynomials (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296322010025
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:156:y:2023:i:c:s0148296322010025

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.113537

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 ().