Unfavourable pregnancy-related behaviour as psychological contract breach: A study of women’s sensemaking, feelings and attitudes toward work

Abstract

This study investigates women’s sensemaking of unfavourable pregnancy-related behaviour within the broader employment relationship. Drawing on psychological contract theory, we examine whether they make sense of such behaviour as psychological contract breach and how such sensemaking relates to their emotional experiences (violation) and attitudes toward their current and future employers and work. Based on Belgian data collected through focus groups with women who had recently had a child while professionally active, three types of sensemaking were identified: 1) the hurt employee, 2) the antagonized employee, and 3) the contented employee. An analysis of the sensemaking of unfavourable pregnancy-related behaviour in the workplace drawing on psychological contact theory advances the existing literature by clarifying the mechanisms leading to targeted employees’ disengagement. It does so by integrating the cognitive and emotional dimensions of the experience of unfavourable behaviour and examining such experience as part of the broader employment relationship.