We introduce the notion of dilemmatic commitments to psychological contract theory and research – where breach lowers affective commitment while raising continuance commitment – and present its contrasting implications for explaining outcomes.
We draw on longitudinal survey data, along with objective data on actual employee turnover from organizational records.
We find opposing mediating pathways between psychological contract breach and employee turnover, via dilemmatic commitments where the effect of breach on employee turnover is positive via affective commitment and negative via continuance commitment.
The dual opposing commitment pathways following breach may explain why previous research finds small associations between breach and employee turnover. While dilemmatic commitment suggests that continuance commitment can offset the affective commitment pathway in limiting actual employee turnover, it represents a “mixed blessing” as both pathways reduced employee engagement in organizational citizenship behaviours.
