Reciprocal effects of psychological contract breach on counterproductive and organizational citizenship behaviors: The role of time

The purpose of this study was to investigate the dynamic relationship between psychological contract (PC) breach, violation feelings, and acts of counterproductive work (CWBs) and organizational citizenship (OCBs) behavior, as well as to investigate the reverse relationship from CWB and OCB to PC breach. We tested these direct and reverse relationships by means of structural equation modeling using latent growth parameters on weekly survey data from 80 respondents for 10 consecutive weeks (516 observations). Our results revealed that an accumulation of PC breach over the course of 10 weeks was positively associated with intensifying violation feelings, which in turn was positively associated with the enactment of an increasing number of CWB-O acts over time. However, we did not find such a relationship for the enactment of OCB-O acts over time. Moreover, we found that both static and increasing numbers of OCB-O and CWB-O acts were negatively and positively related to static and accumulating perceptions of PC breach, respectively. This study challenges the static treatment of PC breach and its reactions, as well as the often assumed negative PC breach-OCB-O relationship. In addition, this study demonstrates a recursive relationship between PC breach and OCB-O and CWB-O.