I’m betrayed and I’m gone – unless organizational leaders convince me otherwise: Perceived contract breaches, quitting intentions, and leader-related resources

ABSTRACT

Employees’ perceptions that their organization has not met its promises toward them (i.e., perceived contract breaches) might inform their turnover intentions, in a link that also could be moderated by four relevant leader-related resources – two that reflect how organizational leaders share knowledge (communication efficiency and informational justice) and two that capture the nature of the relationship between employees and organizational authorities (humility and forgiveness). Using survey data collected among employees who operate in the oil distribution sector in Angola, this study shows that employees’ frustrations about broken organizational promises fuel their desire to quit their jobs, but less so when these employees believe that organizational leaders communicate efficiently and fairly, exhibit humility in their interactions with leaders, and perceive the leaders as forgiving. For organizations, these results provide novel insights into various conditions in which irritations about unmet expectations are less likely to escalate into a detrimental situation in which employees plan to leave.

KEYWORDS:

• turnover intentions
• perceived contract breaches
• communication efficiency
• informational justice
• humility
• forgiveness
• social exchange theory

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Furthermore, and to be precise, we use the term “concurrent” to reflect that we consider the simultaneous effects of perceived contract breaches and each particular characteristic, one at a time, not the simultaneous or interdependent influences of these four leader resources in combination with perceived contract breaches. For further discussion, see the “Post hoc analysis” subsection.

2 Humility and perceptions of organizational forgiveness do not capture relationship quality directly, but this quality can be inferred from these features.

3 The interactions between employees and their supervisors certainly can influence their desire to retaliate too, but we maintain that the collective behaviors of leaders in charge of the organization are equally, if not more, important.

4 The higher vertical position of the high forgiveness line, compared with the low forgiveness line, corresponds with the presence of a direct positive relationship between perceived leader forgiveness and turnover intentions.

5 We leave it to further research to calculate multidimensional configurations to evaluate the extent to which the presence of an “ideal” configuration – marked by elevated levels of each of the four leader characteristics simultaneously – might buffer the translation of perceived contract breaches into diminished turnover intentions (Payne, 2006; Vorhies & Morgan, 2003).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dirk De Clercq

Dirk De Clercq is a Professor of Management in the Goodman School of Business at Brock University, Canada. His research interests include entrepreneurship, organizational behavior, and cross-country studies.

Renato Pereira

Renato Pereira is an Integrated Researcher in the Business Research Unit and Professor of General Management in ISCTE Business School, both at ISCTE Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Portugal. He is also a Researcher in the Emerging Markets Research Center at ISCIM, Mozambique. His research interests include entrepreneurship, innovation, and international business, with a particular focus on Africa.