The effect of organizational psychological contract violation on managers' exit, voice, loyalty and neglect in the Chinese context

Abstract

How to attract and retain valuable human resources and how to create a mutually beneficial relationship between organizations and managers are always important questions for both multinational companies and domestic companies. One major issue related to the above questions in the field of international/strategic human resource management is the psychological contract. A psychological contract is a set of perceptions of what managers and workers owe their organizations, and what their organizations owe them. This contract has important implications for manager and worker satisfaction, and motivation, as well as for the effectiveness of the organization. The current study investigates 524 managers with a response rate of 87% and examines the effect of organizational psychological contract violation on managers' behaviours in the Chinese context of a mixed economy, a blend of market-driven, government-controlled and guanxi-based culture.

Keywords:

• China
• Chinese context
• management
• managers' exit, voice, loyalty and neglect
• psychological contract violation
• transactional

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all of the people who provided data for this research project. The assistance of John Cullen, Gary Johns, Michael Poole and Malcolm Warner on an earlier draft is also greatly appreciated.