We provide a review of psychological contract research, beginning with past conceptualizations and empirical evidence. We tailor this retrospective look by reviewing the antecedents and outcomes associated with psychological contract breach and discussing the dominant theoretical explanations for the breach-outcome relationship. This synthesis of past evidence provides the foundation for reviewing the present emerging and developing themes in psychological contract research. This discussion is organized around the expansion of resources exchanged and the antecedents of contract breach and outcomes, moving beyond reciprocity as an underpinning explanation. We highlight the practical implications of research to date on psychological contracts and end with directions for future research to include the need for greater attention given to ideological currency, employee health, polycontextual approaches, the role of psychological needs, and post-breach/violation.

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Purpose -Using insights from attributions, planned behavior and fairness theories, this study examines the effect of blame attributions of psychological contract breach on employees' attitudes (affective organizational commitment) and behaviors (OCB). The aim of this study is to understand whether employees' reactions depend on the attributions they make concerning who is responsible for the breach.Design/methodology/approach -Cross-lagged design in which data were collected from 220 employees and their supervisors in a public company at two times. Moderated mediation was tested using bootstrapping analysis outlined by Hayes (2012). Findings -The results supported our predictions: employees' blame attributions to the organization have a negative impact on OCBs (as rated by supervisors in time 2) through BLAME ATTRIBUTIONS OF PC BREACH 2 decreased affective organizational commitment; but blame attributions to the economic context act as a buffer of the relationship between blame attributions to organization and affective organizational commitment, with consequences for OCBs.Research limitations/implications -Attributions can also be made to concrete persons (i.e., supervisor, coworker, self) rather than to just the organization or context. Practical implications -When hiring, recruiters should provide accurate and realistic promises to the candidates. When facing hard times, managers should provide additional information to employees and adjust their expectations to the current situation of the firm.Originality/Value -This study makes a unique contribution to the literature by questioning the "single story" perspective about reactions to psychological contract breach, in which is assumed that employees always respond negatively to such event.Keywords -blame attributions, psychological contract breach, affective organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behaviors.

This research shows the importance of supervisor organizational embodiment (SOE) for the relationship between ethical leadership and organizational identification. Drawing on the social identity model of organizational leadership, we propose that ethical leaders promote organizational identification and subsequently extra-role performance only when employees perceive that their leader shares the values and norms of their organization. In a two-wave study and a multi-source study, our findings suggest that the benefits of ethical leadership for organizational identification and consequently extra-role performance are dependent on high levels of SOE; when it is low, ethical leadership does not foster organizational identification, rendering SOE a necessary condition for this relationship. Further, the stability of the effects using multiple research designs strengthens the robustness of our findings. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.