Impact of the psychological contract breach on the employee- organisational relationship (EOR) at a religious organisation

Abstract

The research mainly aimed to assess the impact of the psychological breach on the employee organizational relationship (EOR) at a religious organization. This study was carried out at Celebration Ministries International. It also sought to bring out the psychological contracts that are prevalent at a religious organization and how they in turn cause harm on the employee-organisational relationship. The research employed a qualitative descriptive research design which allows the use of qualitative research methods in data collection (indepth interviews) and data analysis where qualitative descriptive was employed through the use of thematic analysis. Maximum variation sampling was used to come up with research participants. A sample of ten employees was interviewed during the research process. The results of the research study showed that employees at Celebration Ministries International have their own perceived psychological contracts and a breach in some of these has affected their employee-organisational relationship. The perceived psychological contracts included personal treatment, training, career development, tangibility, carefulness regarding arrangements, motivation (support of social activities), long term involvement and recognition of contribution towards organisational growth.An overall assessment in this research showed that when the perceived psychological contract is not fulfilled that is a breach occurs employees tend to disassociate themselves with the organization and the drive to perform extra role behaviours is less. Based on the findings of the study, the author noted that the psychological contract should be managed both at the recruitment stage and also as an ongoing process to avoid a psychological breach which affects organizational citizen behaviours such as helping behaviours, sportsmanship, Organizational Loyalty, Organizational Compliance, Individual Initiative, and Self Development as employees’ drive to perform such will be less.