Examining the Effects of Turnover Intentions on Organizational Citizenship Behaviors and Deviance Behaviors: A Psychological Contract Approach

Although turnover intentions are considered the most proximal antecedent of organizational exit, there is often temporal separation between thinking about leaving and actual exit. Using field data from 2 diverse samples of working adults, we explore a causal model of the effects of turnover intentions on employee behavior while they remain with the organization, focusing specifically on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) and deviance behaviors (DBs). Utilizing expectancy theory as an explanatory framework, we argue that turnover intentions result in high levels of transactional contract orientation and low levels of relational contract orientation, which in turn lead to a decrease in the incidence of OCBs and an increase in the incidence of DBs. We first used a pilot study to investigate the direction of causality between turnover intentions and psychological contract orientations. Then, in Study 1, we tested our mediated model using a sample of employees from a large drug retailing chain. In Study 2, we expanded our model by arguing that the mediated effects are much stronger when the organization is deemed responsible for potential exit. We then tested our full model using a sample of employees from a large state-owned telecommunications corporation in China. Across both studies, results were generally consistent and supportive of our hypotheses. We discuss the implications of our findings for future theory, research, and practice regarding the management of both the turnover process and discretionary behaviors at work.