Consequences of psychological contract violations for is personnel

Jobs in information systems are moving more toward short term arrangements with fewer ties to an organization. These arrangements lead to understandings among information system (IS) employees that are transactional in nature. Additionally, organizations continue to outsource IS functions, further violating the perceived social ties that IS employees experienced in the past. Both of these trends are a cause for concern. We develop a single model to explore previously disjoint research on organizational ties based on the type of psychological contract held between an IS employee and the violation of that psychological contract. An empirical study of the model indicates there is less commitment to the organization when ties are perceived to be transactional and a greater erosion of commitment when broken ties are based on relationships instead of tangible gain. In turn, the loss of commitment leads to an increase in an intention to leave the organization.