Diversity-related psychological contract breach and employee work behavior: insights from intergroup emotions theory

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group A diversity-related psychological contract (DPC) represents minority employees’ beliefs about the diversity-related promises their organization makes in return for their contributions. Based on social exchange theory, our study addresses the consequences of a DPC breach on the work behavior of ethnic minority employees, operationalized here as organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). For further insights, we apply intergroup emotions theory to develop and test a moderated mediation model. Our model presumes that DPC breaches may increase the intergroup anxiety of ethnic minority employees by activating intergroup appraisal processes. This, in turn, results in their avoidant behavior towards the organization in terms of reduced OCB. Moreover, we hypothesize that this intergroup anxiety-mediated relationship between DPC breach and OCB is stronger for ethnic minority employees who are more acculturated to the host culture. Data from 361 Turkish employees working as ethnic minorities for majority-dominated and majority-owned organizations in Belgium support this model.

Publication year:2019

BOF-keylabel:yes

IOF-keylabel:yes

BOF-publication weight:1

CSS-citation score:2

Authors:International

Authors from:Higher Education