The Influence of Perceived Psychological Contract Violation on Employee Commitment at the National Cereals and Produce Board

Abstract

Psychological contracts are the beliefs an individual holds concerning terms of an agreement, which are implicit in nature between the individual and the organization (Rousseau, 2000). This study examined the effect of perceived psychological contract violation on employees’ commitment at the National Cereals and Produce Board. To achieve the goals of this study, 106 management and unionisable employees of the organisation were presented with questionnaires based on important key elements of psychological contract and the types of employee commitment. Responses were received from 92 employees representing 87 percent of the sample group. Their responses to the questionnaire were analysed and evaluated and, based on the findings, recommendations were made. The researcher tested the levels of perceived psychological contract violation and employee’s affective commitment, normative commitment and continuance commitment. The results showed that NCPB employees’ perceived violation of psychological contract to a moderate extent on average, representing violation to a great extent on matters of career development and management of change, and to a moderate extent in compensation and financial reward, job content, social atmosphere and work-life balance. Further results demonstrated that the perceived violation was negatively correlated with the three types of employee commitment. The results indicate that perceived psychological contract violation can affect employee commitment. Employers and those in human resource management should be aware of the psychological contract and how its violation may impact employees. Identifying those items that are most important, but least fulfilled will improve overall employment relationship. Hence, it is recommended that the organization ensures that human resource strategies, policies and procedures are based on distributive, procedural and interactional justice