ULOGA INTERPRETACIJSKOG PROCESA U RAZVOJU EMOCIONALNOG ODGOVORA NA POVREDU PSIHOLOŠKOG UGOVORA
THE ROLE OF THE INTERPRETATION PROCESS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN EMOTIONAL RESPONSE TO A PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACT BREACH

Summary/Abstract: The psychological contract is a perceived agreement on mutual obligations and resource exchange, which in the academic work context will first be recognized in the relationship between teaching staff and higher education organizations. This is an implicit contract formed based on given or just implied promises, which the parties in the relationship do not have to be fully aware of. However, such a contract will guide their mutual behaviour, and a number of individually and organizationally relevant outcomes will depend on its (un) fulfilment. Since the concept of a psychological contract is relatively new and unexplored in the Bosnian academic context, this paper sought to answer the question: Does the perception of a psychological contract breach lead to an emotional reaction to that breach, and under what conditions? Following the identified problem, the correlation between the perceived breach of the psychological contract and the emotional reaction to the breach, and the moderating influence of the interpretive process (defined through attribution of causes, perception of fairness and perception of organizational politics) on this relationship was examined. The results suggest that in a sample of Bosnian academic staff it is justified to say that the correlation between the perceived psychological contract breach and emotional response to that breach will be stronger if the staff members perceive interactional fairness in the organization to be high. The academic staff’s perception of the presence of political behaviour in the organization, as well as the way they attribute the causes of the psychological contract breach, probably does not have a significant impact on their interpretation of the psychological contract breach.

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