Behavioural and attitudinal outcomes of psychological contract violation among some selected SMEs workers: a psychological appraisal of operational challenges of SME’s in Nigeria

Abstract

Employment situation is widely conceived as a ‘social contract’ powered by ‘exchange processes’ between two parties. When expectations from such mutual “social contract” do not happen in the workplace, employees may perceive a violation in the psychological contract. Recognizing the import of the breach to the potential changes in the employment relationship the study examined behavioural and attitudinal outcomes of psychological contract violation among some selected SMEs workers in Lagos metropolis. Employee’s perceptions as reflected in self reports constituted the central features of a model underlying the study, as they were believed to be related to the individual experience. A total sample of 514 full and part-time employees of some twelve front-line SMEs from Logos metropolis participated in the study. The study was anchored on the Social Exchange Theory) and Adam’s Smith Equity Theory. It was hypothesized that (i) there will be a significant positive correlation between feelings of psychological contract violations and employees behavioural and attitudinal outcomes. (ii) Psychological contract violation will correlate positively with negative behavioural and attitudinal outcomes. The data collected were analysed using independent t-test, multiple linear regression analysis and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). Key findings suggest that (i) feelings of psychological contract violations was generally high across workgroups, organizational types, as well as job cadre, (ii) fraudulent self-enrichment tendencies, theft and deception, cutting corners and diversion of resources, sabotage and dishonesty behaviours and impropriety/sharp corrupt practices was established (ii) significant high level effort withholding behaviours was also confirmed among the sampled employees. Practical and human resource implications of the results were discussed in the light of extant literatures.

Keywords: Psychological Contract, Theft and Fraud, Sabotage and Effort Withholding)