Psychological Contracts and Organizational Identification: The Mediating Effect of Perceived Organizational Support

Understanding the processes through which employees incorporate the organization’s identity into their own identity is critical
to building positive employer-employee relationships. We draw primarily on organizational support theory to advance the argument
that psychological contract breach is negatively related to organizational identification and positively related to organizational
disidentification because it makes employees believe that their organizations do not value their contributions or care about
their well-being (reduces perceived organizational support). Results from two studies generally provide support for our hypotheses:
in Study 1, perceived organizational support fully mediated the relationship between psychological contract breach and organizational
identification. In Study 2, Time 2 perceived organizational support fully mediated the relationship between Time 1 relational
psychological contract breach (e.g., promises related to training, development, job security) and organizational identification,
but not the relationship between transactional psychological contract breach (e.g., promises related to pay and work hours)
and organizational identification. Time 2 perceived organizational support partially mediated the relationship between relational
psychological contract breach and organizational disidentification, but not the relationship between transactional psychological
contract breach and organizational disidentification. We conclude that organizations should be concerned with this erosion
of the positive employer-employee relationship (organizational identification) and fostering of a negative employer-employee
relationship (disidentification).