Employment Circumstances Influence Responses to 'Psychological Contract Breaches'

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — In most work situations, employees respond to perceptions of unfulfilled employer obligations by bad-mouthing the employer, skipping work or finding a new job. But researchers at the University of Arkansas wanted to know how workers with extremely limited employment options react to these perceptions, which are known as “psychological contract breaches” in labor-management relations

The researchers conducted in-depth interviews with “job-constrained” foreign workers in the United States and discovered that employee responses to psychological contract breaches vary dramatically depending on the specific employment circumstances. Rather than venting emotions toward their employers, not showing up for work or looking for a different job, job-constrained employees develop specific coping tactics to help them deal with breaches. Furthermore, the researchers discovered that these tactics allow job-constrained workers to remain motivated and dedicated to their jobs.

“If there are (psychological contract breaches) in a traditional work setting, employees get angry, tend to be less motivated and are more likely to leave their jobs,” said Vikas Anand, associate professor of management in the Sam M. Walton College of Business and lead author of the study. “In our study, the job-constrained workers were highly motivated. In fact, in many cases, work became the one thing that gave them joy. They were immersed in their jobs.”

The workers’ specific employment circumstances help explain their response to psychological contract breaches. The researchers interviewed 60 professional contract employees, all software engineers from India. The workers were recruited and hired by so-called “bodyshoppers,” U.S.-based firms that hire foreign software engineers and arrange for visas that allow the engineers to work in the United States. The visas are classified by the federal government as temporary, and only sponsoring employers can apply for them on behalf of alien workers.

After hiring the foreign workers, bodyshoppers then assign or rent their employees to work on short-term projects with major American corporations. The workers, sometimes called contractors, are job-constrained because they are at the mercy of the bodyshopper, who controls the visas.

“Many of these workers arrive in the United States with a dream of a better standard of living and a desire to remain as long as they can,” Anand said. “However, if the bodyshopper were to terminate their employment, they would then have to leave the country.”

The contractors must remain with a bodyshopper for three to six years before they can acquire a green card for permanent residence. During this time, if they are unhappy with their employer, their options for changing or improving the situation are extremely limited. Also, contractors are reluctant to change bodyshoppers because that would re-initiate the lengthy green-card process. The problem is further complicated by the workers’ limited legal rights due to lack of citizenship and a prevailing attitude among contractors that litigation should be avoided at all costs.

Because of these constraints, contractors do not challenge employers directly. Instead of pursuing legal action, filing a grievance with an employer or displaying dysfunctional behavior typical of employees without job constraints, the contractors immerse themselves in their work and tolerate their employers throughout the visa-application process.

Interviews with 60 contractors revealed five predominant coping strategies contractors use to put up with bodyshoppers:

# Detachment: Employees distance themselves from organizations and function almost independently. They become satisfied with limited communication with the bodyshopper or a belief that their client, the company that has an agreement with the bodyshopper, is their employer.

# Selective Social Comparisons: To maintain a positive image about themselves and the organizations they work for, employees compare themselves to other employees who have had worse experiences.

# Lowered Expectations: Employees maintain low expectations to curb dissatisfaction and disappointment.

# Hope and Cynicism: Employees maintain hope for the future by focusing on long-term goals, such as obtaining their green card, while remaining cynical about their employer and believing the bodyshopping system itself is flawed.

# Social Buffering: Employees insulate themselves from their employer by forming a group of people facing similar circumstances. This provides a social bulwark against outside threats.
 
Professor Anne O’Leary-Kelly, chair of the department of management and co-author of the study, said the bodyshopping system serves the interests of several parties. Large companies have a shortage of software engineers, and India produces many highly qualified information-technology professionals. Bodyshoppers connect the two parties and serve an important function by processing personnel and visa-application paperwork. Anand said that in the mid-1990s, large companies such as IBM, Microsoft and Intel decided to refrain from processing visas for foreign workers and allowed bodyshoppers to process them instead.

“The potential is there for the system to work well if the bodyshoppers have high integrity,” O’Leary-Kelly said.

The problem is that several of the firms are unscrupulous and use unfair, unethical and even illegal practices to exploit a vulnerable group of people, many of whom do not know their rights. Some contractors told the researchers that they were paid significantly less than they were promised before they came to the United States. Others were promised jobs but had to wait months without pay before obtaining jobs. One contractor told researchers that his bodyshopper informed him that it was the contractor’s responsibility to find a job after the bodyshopper had brought the contractor to the United States.

Anand and O’Leary-Kelly acknowledge that participants in their study experience extreme job constraints, but the researchers believe that other, less-extreme circumstances generate similar responses to psychological contract breaches. For example, O’Leary-Kelly said employees of the primary employer in a small town may feel constraints, especially if they grew up in that town, and may use the same responses, such as comparing themselves to less-fortunate employees or forming a like-minded group to insulate themselves from the employer, to cope with psychological contract breaches.

Kevin Anderson, a UA doctoral student in management, and Blake Ashforth, professor of management at Arizona State University, are also co-authors of the study. 

The researchers presented their study at the Academy of Management Conference in Honolulu, Hawaii.