Description:
<jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title><jats:p>This paper aims to investigate how employees’ perceptions of psychological contract violation or sense of organizational betrayal, might diminish their job satisfaction, as well as how their access to two critical personal resources – emotion regulation skills and work-related self-efficacy – might buffer this negative relationship.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title><jats:p>Two-wave survey data came from employees of Pakistani-based organizations.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title><jats:p>Perceived contract violation reduces job satisfaction, but the effect is weaker at higher levels of emotion regulation skills and work-related self-efficacy.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Practical implications</jats:title><jats:p>For organizations, these results show that the frustrations that come with a sense of organizational betrayal can be contained more easily to the extent that their employees can draw from relevant personal resources.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title><jats:p>This investigation provides a more complete understanding of when perceived contract violation will deplete employees’ emotional resources, in the form of feelings of happiness about their job situation. A sense of organizational betrayal is less likely to escalate into reduced job satisfaction when employees can control their negative emotions and feel confident about their work-related competencies.</jats:p></jats:sec>