ABSTRACT
Research on the employee–organization relationship (EOR) has primarily drawn upon social exchange theory and the norm of reciprocity (Blau, 1964; Gouldner, 1960) and the inducements–contributions model (March & Simon, 1958) as the bases for describing and categorizing different EORs and their consequences for organizationally desired employee attitudes and behaviors. The key finding emerging from this research supports the contention that social exchange relationships (e.g., perceived organizational support, psychological contract fulfillment, overinvestment and mutual investment employer approaches to the EOR) yield positive benefits for individuals and organizations. An area of the EOR literature that has garnered much less theoretical and empirical attention is negative relationships in which employees perceive that their relationship with the organization is harmful. Two exceptions are psychological contract breach and violation (Robinson, 1996; Rousseau, 1995), consisting of employee perceptions of and emotional reactions to broken promises, and underinvestment and quasi-spot contract using the inducements–contributions employment relationship framework (Tsui, Pearce, Porter, & Tripoli, 1997). In the case of breach and violation, the focus is on lack of organizational fulfillment of promises, a reflection of the norm of reciprocity, and expectations of exchange of favors. In the latter case, the focus is on imbalance of inducements by the organization and contributions by the employee. These literatures provide a starting point for developing a model of negative EORs by highlighting the key roles of reciprocation and balance in establishing and maintaining positive EORs.
