Assignment: Taking Organizational Measurements-3 pages

Breach of Psychological Contract and Job Involvement: Does

Organizational Cynicism Mediates the Relationship?

Muhammad Nadim * ,Seerat Fatima

† , Sana Aroos

‡

And Muhammad Haroon Hafeez §

ABSTRACT This research study examined the association between breach of

psychological contract & job involvement of nurses working in public

health care sector of Pakistan. Specifically, this study has introduced

organizational cynicism as a mediator between breach of psychological

contact and job involvement. By using self-administered survey, we

collected data from 162 nurses employed in various public sector

hospitals in Pakistan. Findings of this study highlighted that breach of

psychological contract causes decrease in job involvement of nurses

among public sector hospitals and this association is partially

mediated through organizational cynicism. Implications for practice

and future research directions are highlighted.

Keywords: Breach of psychological contract (BPC), Job involvement,

Organizational cynicism, Pakistan.

Introduction

Once an individual joins an organization, many contracts are signed

containing terms and conditions of employment. But it is often seen that

many employees do not recognize that they are also entering intoone

moretype of contract that is not written nor enunciated. This unwritten

agreement or common expectation between employer and employees is

called a psychological contract (Rousseau, 1989).

A psychological contact breach is defined as employees’ insight

that their organization has proved unsuccessful to execute some duties or

commitments coupled with perceived mutual promises

(Tetrick&Gakovic, 2003). The breach of contract causes several

depressing upshots in an organization which include organizational

cynicism (O’Leary- Kelly & Johnson, 2003).Organizational cynicism

refers to an employee’s negative attitude towards his organization,

consisting of three dimensions:(1) a strong perception that his employing

organization lacks truthfulness or integrity; (2) negative affect with

respect of his employing organization; and (3) tendencies of arrogant and

unproductive behaviors directed towards one’s employing organization

representing these beliefs and affect (Brandes, Dean&Dharwadkar,

1998).

On the other hand, job involvement is considered as a type of the

job attitudes(Janasz, Forret, Haack&Jonsen, 2013). Employee’s high job

involvement is a necessary condition for effective functioning of the

organization because it results in a number of positive consequences for

the organization including high job satisfaction, high commitment, lower

intentions to quit (McElroy et al., 1995) low tendency to leave the work

early, high effort level and performance (Blau& Ryan,

1997).However,job involvement in nursing profession is lacking in

developing countries like Pakistan due to multiple reasons including low-

graded status of nurse, lack of career advancement, inadequate incentives

and aloofappointments, and poor working conditions (Khowaja, 2009).

* Muhammad Nadim, University of the Punjab, Jhelum Campus, Jhelum,

Pakistan. E-mail: [email protected] † Seerat Fatima , Institute of Management Sciences, Bahauddin Zakariya

University, Multan, Pakistan ‡ Sana Aroos , Capital University of Science and Technology, Islamabad

§ Muhammad Haroon Hafeez, Institute of Management Sciences, Bahauddin

Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan

Breach of Psychological Contract… Nadim, Seerat & Haroon

Journal of Managerial sciences 99 Volume XIII Number 3

In the field of organizational behavior, there is dearth of research that

explicates the association between BPC and job involvement. Existing

literature had highlighted that BPC can have negative association with

various job attitudes (Schmit, Amel& Ryan, 1993). Since, job

involvement is also an important type of job attitudes(Janasz, Forret,

Haack&Jonsen, 2013) therefore, it is reasonable to argue that job

involvement can be influenced by BPC. Additionally, many nurses

experience BPC and organizational cynicism at some time or another but

not all of them leave their jobs because of it. Why do some nurses simply

continue to work in a cynic environment? Whether there job involvement

decrease due to their perception of organizational cynicism or not? In

developing countries like Pakistan, there is much research linking BPC

and various jobattitudes but there is little research establishing the

linkage between BPC and job involvement (De Hauw& De Vos, 2010).

Consequently, this study concentrate on this scarcity by developing the

research question “Does breach of psychological contract leads to

decrease in job involvement and does organizational cynicism mediates

this relationship?” This study will have imperative implications for the

nursing sector of Pakistan. Further, it intends to add to the existing body

of literature both theoretically and empirically by illuminating the critical

role of organizational cynicism in explaining the association between

BPC and job involvement.

Literature Review Breach of Psychological contract (BPC) and Job involvement

BPC denotes employee’s perception that their organization has proved

unsuccessful to perform some duties associated with perceived mutual

promises(Tertrick&Gakoviv, 2003). Thus far many researches had

studied the constructiveeffects of fulfillment of psychological contract on

employees and organizational performance. However, there is scant

literature showing the negative effects that BPC may have on employee’s

attitude & behavior. Substantial research highlighted that perception of

BPC is negatively correlated with employee’s job performance, OCB,

and commitment with one’s employing organization (Turnley, et al.,

2000; Sheng, et al., 2007) satisfaction with job and loyalty with the

organization (Lester, et al., 2002; Tufail et al., 2017).When employer

fails to meet its responsibilities or obligations it can be a principal reason

of employees frustration and consequent lower job involvement.

Job involvement denotes the extent to which an individual is

cognitively worried, intensely tied up, and concerned with respect to his

or her job (Paullay et al., 1994). Job involvement is one of the major

factors contributing to organizational capacity to effectively meet the

needs of this competitive and turbulent business environment. Social

exchange theory Blau (1964) maintains that the relationships between

persons are based upon mutual social obligations. When one party fulfills

its obligations adequately the other will also do the same. It means, there

is the principle of reciprocity that the action on the part of one person

shapes the response of other(Mitchell &Cropanzano, 2005).When

employers fail to fulfill its duties or obligations, then breach of

psychological contract arise (Robinson & Morrison, 1997) which can

result in lower job involvement (Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005; De

Hauw& De Vos, 2010). Therefore, frustration aggression theory lends

support to create a link between BPC and job involvement and

constructing the first hypothesis:

H1.BPC is negatively associated with job involvement of nurses.

Breach of Psychological Contract… Nadim, Seerat & Haroon

Journal of Managerial sciences 100 Volume XIII Number 3

Organizational Cynicism as a Mediator

Cynicism and its consequences to the employees and organizations are

primarily studied by Golden et.al.(1977).In the existing research studies,

cynicism refers to an attitude highlighted by a dislike for and suspicion

about others. Organizational cynicism according to Dean is an

employee’s negative attitude toward his organization, consisting of three

dimensions: (1) a strong perception that organization lacks truthfulness;

(2) negative affect and (3) tendencies of arrogant and unproductive

behaviors representing those beliefs and emotions (Dean et al., 1998).

There are various factors which contribute towards the

development of organizational cynicism in employee which include high

stress level, increased complexity in the organization, low social support,

miscommunication, low autonomy, work-role clash, BPC, incompetent

management, trust deficitand hostile work atmosphere have been

illuminated in the existing studies as the predictors of organizational

cynicism among others (Cole, et al., 2006;O’leary- Kelly and Johnson,

2003;Tükeltürk, et al., 2012).

On the other hand, organizational cynicism can cause a number

of undesirable outcomes among employees, e.g. minimum level of

commitment towards the organization, reduced job satisfaction (O’leary-

Keller and Johnson, 2003) decreased employee’s performance,

commitment with the unions (Bashir and Nasir, 2013) and lower job

involvement (Brown and Leigh, 1996). BPC negatively influences the

employee’s conviction which leads to changes in behaviors and attitudes

of employees (Robinson and Morrison, 1997)Frustration causes

aggressive or hostile behavior among employees resulting inflow job

involvement (Brown and Leigh, 1996). Through this study it is argued

that since organizational cynicism results in employee frustration

(Andersson, 1996), which can result in low job involvement. Hence,

organizational cynicism is expected to act as a mediator between BPC

and job involvement. Accordingly, the second hypothesis of this study is:

H2.Organizational cynicism mediates the relationship between BPCand

job involvement of nurses.

Research Model

The following is the research model of this study

Methodology

Population Sample and Sampling Technique

The population of this study was nurses of public health care sector of

Pakistan. However, due to limited access to the target population as well

as time and financial constraints convenience sampling technique was

employed to gather the required data from nurses. By using self-

administered survey method, initially, 300 questionnaires were

distributed among nursing staff of public hospitals in various cities of

Pakistan. Out of these 300 questionnaires, 183 questionnaires were

received back, 21 questionnaires were incomplete and were excluded

from the study. Consequently, 162 responses were finally retained for

analysis representing a response rate of 54%. To warrant secrecy and to

obtain true and honest information, nurses were directed not to write

Breach of

Psychological

Contract

Job

Involvement Organizational

Cynicism

Breach of Psychological Contract… Nadim, Seerat & Haroon

Journal of Managerial sciences 101 Volume XIII Number 3

their in the questionnaire. Further, they were assured that their responses

will be kept secret.

Instrumentation

We adopted questionnaires from earlier studies. We used Robinson and

Morrison (2000) five item BPC Scale. To measures organizational

cynicism, Dean et al. (1998) 13-item scale was used. Similarly, Kanungo

(1982) 10-itmes Job involvement Questionnaire (JIQ) was used to

measure level of nurses’ job involvement. All the questionnaires used

were in the shape of five-point likert scale with “Strongly disagree” (1)

to “Strongly agree”(5) response range. Data were also captured on

demographic variables of age, tenure, marital status and employment

status.

Data Analysis And Results

Table 1 indicates the relation ship among variables and their reliabilities

measures. A significant positive correlation (r= .767, p < .01)is observed

among BPC and organizational cynicism. On the other hand, a negative

correlation (r= -.686, p < .01)is detected between BPC and job

involvement. Finally, organizational cynicism and job involvement are

also found negatively correlated (r= -.671, p < .01).

Table: 1 Correlations and reliabilities (in parentheses).

Mean S.D 1 2 3

BPC 3.54 .776 (.764)

OC 3.39 .732 .767** (.836)

JI 2.39 .858 -.686** -.671** (.768)

BPC= Breach of psychological contract; JI = Job Involvement, OC =

Organizational Cynicism;

n = 162. *P<.05 **p<.01

Table 2 depicts results about the hypothesized relationships

among the study variables. The overall model of envisaging job

involvement from BPC is significant (F = 177.25, P <.01). Our

investigation controlled for the effects of age, gender and working

experience. The results of the regression analysis highlighted that BPC is

a significant negative predictor of job involvement (β = -.712, p < .01).

Hence, we found strong support for first hypothesis of the study that

increase in BPC would lead to decrease in job involvement. This

relationship is also verified from statistically significant bivariate

correlation between BPC and job involvement.

Table 2 Regression analysis results

Predictors Job Involvement

βt R 2 ΔR

2

Step 1

Control Variables .012

Step 2

BPC -.712** -7.516 .771 .759

a. Predictors: (Constant), Age

b. Predictors: (Constant), Age, Organizational Cynicism,

BPC

Values are unstandardized beta weights* p<.05**p<.01

Breach of Psychological Contract… Nadim, Seerat & Haroon

Journal of Managerial sciences 102 Volume XIII Number 3

We performed the mediation analysis through SPSS script by

Preacher and Hayes(2008),for indirect effects. We performed

bootstrapping and requested 5000 samples; a bias-corrected 95% CI is

shaped for ab. For this 95% CI, the LL is -.4220 and UL is -.0332.

Different criterion might be applied to evaluate the significance of the

indirect path. In this study, both a&b coefficients are statistically

considerable, and the bootstrapped CI for ab did not include zero. So, the

indirect effect of BPC on job involvement through organizational

cynicism is statistically significant. The direct path from BPC to job

involvement (c′) was also found to be significant; therefore, the effect of

BPC on job involvement is only partially mediated by organizational

cynicism. These results are summarized in table 3 below.

Table 3Upshots of Mediation IV Effect

of IV

on M

Effect of

M on DV

Direct

effect

Total

effect

BS 95% CI

LL UL

BPC

.84**

-.28**

-.73**

-.96**

-.422

-.033

CI: 95%, Number of Bootstraps: 5000, ** P < .01

Conclusions And Implications

In general, our results supported the hypotheses of the current study. The

first hypothesis of this study which was designed to explore the relation

between BPC and job involvement is accepted. The negative relationship

between these variables suggests that BPC decreases job involvement of

nurses. Since, due to limited job opportunities in Pakistan

(Qayyum&Siddiqui, 2007), many nurses cannot afford to leave their job

when there is BPC instead, they may decrease their job involvement as a

way of reprisal to the organizational strategies and policies. Hence, the

nurses exhibiting lower job involvement in public sector hospitals of

Pakistan, is actually a response for their perception of BPC. This study

also highlighted that the relation between BPC and job involvement

cannot be comprehensively clarified until organizational cynicism is not

incorporated in the model. Existing literature tinted that the contract

disobedience on the part of employer does influence the workers faith

eventually originates change in their behavior and attitude (Robinson &

Morrison, 1997) as well as magnification of organizational cynicism

(Andersson, 1996; O’Leary-Kelly and Johnson 2003). Thus, BPC

increases organizational cynicism and ultimately diminishes job

involvement. The findings of current study can be useful for decision

makers and administrator of public sector hospitals. Most of the nurses in

their informal discussion with the authors had pointed out that

management makes false promises regarding their benefits and career

prospects. Since, the health sector is one of the important and sensitive

sectors, hospitals must be cautious in making promises with their nursing

staff because this is the key for their successful functioning.

Limitations And Future Research

While these upshots of the current study facilitate us to better understand

job involvement of nurses in public sector hospitals of Pakistan, there are

some limitations of this study which needs to be tackled by future

searchers. The findings of this study are based upon a more restricted

sample using convenient sampling technique, however more

sophisticated sampling technique can grant more extensive picture on

this issue. Likewise, this study is cross sectional in nature, the results

might be different if longitudinal data were collected. Since

organizational cynicism reasonably mediated the relationamongBPC and

Breach of Psychological Contract… Nadim, Seerat & Haroon

Journal of Managerial sciences 103 Volume XIII Number 3

job involvement; future scholars should explore some other possible

mediating variables as well.

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