An empirical exploration of psychological contract violation and individual behaviour : The case of Canadian federal civil servants in Quebec

Purpose – The purpose of the research is to demonstrate the impact of psychological contract infringement (independent variable) on organizational commitment, exit, voice and neglect (dependent variables) within a Canadian federal public organization located in Quebec, where individual (e.g. age), organizational (e.g. stricter rule enforcement) and situational (e.g., employment alternatives) variables are controlled. Design/methodology/approach – A pre‐tested questionnaire (204 questions) on the psychological contract was distributed to 357 Canadian civil servants in a one site federal department. One hundred and thirty‐two questionnaires were returned and considered usable for research, for a 37 per cent response rate. Bivariate analysis was performed on the various determinants and individual responses to psychological contract violation, including organizational commitment, departure designs and counterproductive behaviors. Findings – Results clearly illustrate the great complexity of the link between organizational variables and individual reactions and shed light, on a higher level, on the need to outgrow arguments that reduce bureaucracy to its mere perverse effects. These results suggest that the managerial challenge is not so much to produce a shift from an environment where the rule of law, standards and regulations prevails to an open and flexible environment where individual autonomy is prized as it is to ensure compliance with normative and regulatory constraints. Originality/value – The research seeks to enrich the knowledge base on the subject area because previous research has dealt almost exclusively with the psychological contract within large private companies.