Do employees actually intend to turnover when betrayed? Evidence from China and the USA

Purpose: The main purpose of present study is to investigate how familial collectivism and gender affect the psychological contract violation–turnover intention relationship by comparing Chinese with American samples. Design/methodology/approach: In total, 688 and 892 full-time workers were recruited, respectively, from China and the USA to form the two samples. Then, three-way interaction regression models were used to test the hypotheses. Findings: The results indicate that familial collectivism will negatively moderate the psychological contract violation–turnover intention relationship in the Chinese sample and positively moderate their relationship in the American sample. Moreover, the moderating effect of familial collectivism on the relationship between psychological contract violation and turnover intention is significant among the male employees and insignificant among the female employees for Chinese sample. Whereas for the American sample, the moderating effects are significant among both the male and the female employees. Originality/value: This study improves the theoretical model of Turnley and Feldman (1999) by examining the moderating effect of familial collectivism and gender differences on the relationship between psychological contract violation and turnover intention. And two samples (China vs the USA) are used in the study, which helps to explain the possible difference in influencing the relationship between psychological contract violation and turnover intention between two nations. The main practical implication for managers is that organizations should recognize the importance of the gender role and individuals’ culture orientation when implementing different human resource management policies.