Abstract

Myriad studies have shown that psychological contract breach and fulfillment relate to employees’ job satisfaction. However, these studies primarily utilized samples of Western employees, calling into question the cross-cultural generalizability of their findings. This paper attempts to answer this question, by investigating the relationship between transactional and relational psychological contract breach and fulfillment on the one hand and job satisfaction on the other, in a large sample (N=1743) of employees from a single organization, working in 19 countries. We hypothesize that four cultural values— assertiveness, collectivism, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance—explain differences between these countries in employees’ job satisfaction following breach and fulfillment. Using the expanded approach to psychological contract breach and fulfillment in a multilevel framework, we find that differences in employees’ job satisfaction from these various countries exist, and that assertiveness, power distance and uncertainty avoidance can explain these differences. We conclude that culture plays an important role in shaping employees reactions to the psychological contract.