Who’s to Blame? When Feelings of Psychological Contract Violations Spill Over

The complex employee-employer relationship of expatriates has been widely oversimplified in global mobility research by considering the parent company as sole counterpart. Recently, however, expatriate management scholars started to criticize the single-agency perspective and provide strong arguments that expatriates simultaneously form psychological contracts with both the as-signing parent company and the receiving foreign subsidiary. This study builds on this altered perspective and empirically explores the complex employee-employer relationship of expatriates from a multiple-agency perspective. Using a two-wave data set among international assignees, the study provides insights into the mechanisms why feelings of violation may transcend organizational boundaries and shows that a perceived psychological contract violation by one organizational entity does not only lead to a reduced commitment towards this entity, but also negatively impacts the commitment towards the other entity. By introducing a novel theoretical mechanism, the study reveals asymmetric spillover effect – depending on the availability and power position of the violating entity. The study therefore provides a novel perspective with initial empirical evidence of spillover effects in the context of international assignments and offers explanations when and why they happen.