Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2023, Psychology/Industrial-Organizational

During the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work became commonplace for many knowledge workers who were previously office-based. In 2021 and beyond, many organizations have expected that their employees return to onsite work; much has been unknown, however, about employee attitudes toward loss of remote work during such a transition. Using the frameworks of social exchange theory, conservation of resources, and organizational support, this research seeks to understand how employee attitudes toward remote work may impact perceptions of psychological contract breach in required return to onsite work. Although initial hypotheses were not supported, exploratory analyses supported a serial mediation model in which psychological contract breach, perceived organizational support, and affective commitment serially mediate the positive relationship between remote work preference and turnover intent. Positive attitudes of working mothers toward remote work were also explored, with consideration of how remote work may help in the balance of conflicting home and work demands. Findings support the unique and valuable role that remote work choice may play for working mothers as well as illuminating their potential reactions to loss of remote work. Findings have implications for organizations seeking to meet employee needs and retain workers, particularly working mothers, when considering work location requirements.

Committee: Margaret Brooks Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Marco Nardone Ph.D. (Committee Member); William O'Brien Ph.D. (Committee Member); Clare Barratt Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Occupational Psychology; Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2016, Accounting

Psychological contracts are based in social exchange theory and the norm of reciprocity. A psychological contract consists of the beliefs and expectations of what the individual expects to give and receive from another party. When these beliefs or expectations are broken a psychological contract violation (PCV) occurs. PCVs often lead to many negative employee work behaviors. This dissertation hypothesizes that one such repercussion will be a decreased intention to report fraud following the occurrence of a PCV. This dissertation conducts three experiments to examine the effect of PCVs on reporting intentions to the whistleblowing hotline, supervisor, and internal audit. To examine the impact of PCVs one has to first be provoked. Each variable in the three 2x2 between-subjects experiments has both a negative and a positive form. The negative manipulation is intended to elicit a PCV while the positive is not, so that differences can be studied. The first experiment manipulated interpersonal affect and reciprocity. Results indicate that interpersonal affect significantly predicts reporting intentions to all three outlets, but reciprocity and the interaction do not. The second experiment manipulated organizational financial sustainability and organizational change. Results indicate that organizational change significantly predicts reporting intentions to the whistleblowing hotline, and that the interaction marginally predicts intention to report to internal audit. However, financial sustainability was not a significant predictor. The third experiment manipulated organizational ethical environment and the outcome to previous reports of unethical activity. Results indicate that ethical environment, outcome of previous reports, and the interaction all significantly predict intention to report to the supervisor.

Committee: Timothy Fogarty (Committee Chair); Gary Previts (Committee Member); Mark Taylor (Committee Member); Chris Burant (Committee Member) Subjects: Accounting

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2003, Psychology

Employees' psychological contracts are receiving increased attention in the organizational literature, although our understanding of the relationship between perceived breaches of the contract and feelings of anger and other negative emotions associated with psychological contract violation remains limited. The present study sought to explain the development of feelings of psychological contract violation through the attributions employees make for the breaches they perceive. The entailment model, borrowed from the marital satisfaction literature, was used as the framework for understanding the impact of causal, responsibility and blame attributions on psychological contract violation. A secondary goal of this study was to explore the relationship between psychological contract violation, organizational cynicism, organizational citizenship behaviors and workplace deviance behaviors, to determine whether it makes sense to consider psychological contract violation, not psychological contract breach, as the more proximal influence on those attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Causal, responsibility and blame attributions each separately explained significant amounts of the variance in psychological contract violation. In addition, responsibility attributions were able to explain additional variance beyond that accounted for by causal attributions. In contrast to a full entailment view of attributions, blame attributions were not able to account for additional variance in psychological contract violation beyond that accounted for by causal and responsibility attributions. Another test of the full entailment model, using structural equation modeling, indicated that the model had mediocre fit. Despite this mediocre fit, the paths from causal to responsibility attributions, responsibility to blame attributions and blame attributions to contract violation were all large, indicating support for the entailment model. In the secondary analyses involving psychological contract (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: John Wanous (Advisor) Subjects: Psychology, Industrial