Breach of Psychological Contract and Burnout: Is There a Link?

Abstract

Employees seek out a bilateral relationship when they are employed in an organization. Psychological contracts are one way of seeking this reciprocation which is formed during the pre-employment negotiations. But breach of such contracts may have negative ramifications.  This study uses data of the banking sector of Pakistan to find out the level of breaches in the promises made to the employees and to examine whether such breach of psychological contracts is linked to a bankers’ job burnout experiences. Data is collected through questionnaires from 6 randomly selected leading banks of Pakistan operating in Peshawar, and analyzed through frequency tables and chi-square test. It is found that 33% of the bankers believe that their employers have poorly fulfilled their promises. This breach is also associated with exhaustion and depersonalization.