1. Introduction

Greatest research has inspected the consequence of psychological contract breach on job outcomes (^{Hao et al., 2007}). This study discovered using a psychological contract as a mediator in the association between personality dimensions and job outcomes. The effects of five-factor personality dimensions on forming psychological contract and turnover intention theoretically contribute to elaborating concepts about how different types of personalities perceive and form psychological contracts with organizations. These psychological contract types have a major role in the turnover of organizations. Trends likes’ demographic variety, short-term contracts, downsizing, and reengineering have changed traditional psychological contract perception. These trends become vague to both parties i.e. employer and employee regarding obligations which makes difficult for an organization to fulfil them. Additionally, different representatives of organizations including line managers and HR manager send different messages relating to expectations and obligations of contracts (^{David et al., 2003}). Mutual obligations between employer and employee associations are serious problems. These mutual obligations partially put on documentation in the form of written formal contracts about employment but most of the parts are unspoken that are secretly held and rarely converse (^{Rousseau, 1990}). As a result, employees remain unclear about contracts with their organizations. Therefore, it is important to study psychological contract and its impact on turnover intention which is considered as a personal desire to leave the organization (^{Elangovan, 2001}). Personality strongly associated with work attitudes and behaviour (^{Barrick & Mount, 2005}). Therefore, personality dimensions are taken as an independent variable for seeing the effect on the turnover intention with the mediation of psychological contract. This research can help organizations to look into the personality phases for recruiting employees. A breach in the contract can occur from both objective and subjective factors that organizations have not the ability to control. If employees are hired with a convincing personality dimension that will resist employees from perceiving contract breach. This study is a proposal of theoretic arguments that foresee psychological contracts people with certain personality dimensions will create and how they will perceive contract breaches. Moreover, we consider how psychological contracts are associated with turnover intention. This study takes a psychological contract as a whole to test mediation between personality dimensions and turnover intention of software engineers working in multinational communication and IT companies in Pakistani culture.

Research has found that employee issues are a major contributor to the failure of many organizations. The mediation effects of the psychological contract between personality dimensions and turnover intention will be helpful for solving issues of employees’ retention. Hence, the problem statement is to investigate how employees of different personalities build their psychological contract with their employers in an organization, and consequently how it affects their turnover intentions.

The objectives of this study are:

To empirically investigate the effect of personality dimensions (extroversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, emotional stability and conscientiousness) on employee turnover intentions.

To empirically investigate mediation of psychological contract between dimensions of personality (extroversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, emotional stability and conscientiousness) and turnover intentions.

For this study, the researcher considered ten following hypotheses:

H _1a : Extroversion has a significant relationship with turnover intentions.

H _1b : Conscientiousness has a significant relationship with turnover intention.

H _1c : Emotionally stability has a significant relationship with turnover intention.

H _1d : Agreeableness has a significant relationship with turnover intention.

H _1e : Openness to experience has a significant relationship with turnover intention.

H _2a : The psychological contract mediates the relationship between extroversion and turnover intentions.

H _2b : The psychological contract mediates the relationship between conscientiousness and turnover intentions.

H _2c : The psychological contract mediates the relationship between emotional stability and turnover intentions.

H _2d : The psychological contract mediates the relationship between agreeableness and turnover intentions.

H _2e : The psychological contract mediates the relationship between openness to experience and turnover intentions.

2. Literature review

2.1 Personality

It is the individual’s stable pattern of cognition, motivation, and behaviour revealed across context (^{Goldberg, 1993}). It consisted of five dimensions namely, extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to experience (^{Goldberg, 1990})

2.1.1 Extroversion

Extraversion is a trait that indicates people are active firm, dynamic, and sociable (^{Goldberg, 1990}).

2.1.2 Agreeableness

Agreeableness includes traits like warmness, dependence, politeness, and cooperativeness (^{Goldberg, 1990}).

2.1.3 Conscientiousness

Conscientious individuals are organized, accountable, dependable, thorough, and hardworking (^{Goldberg, 1990}).

2.1.4 Emotionally Stability

Emotional stability is related to the well-being, and emotional stability of individuals experiencing emotions (^{Goldberg, 1990}).

2.1.5 Open to Experience

Openness to experience is defined through open-mindedness, divergent thinking, manifestation, and logical and artistic creativity (^{Correa et al., 2010}).

2.2 Psychological contract (PC)

PC consisted of an individual faith relating to reciprocal responsibilities in the context of associations between organization and employee (^{Rousseau, 1990}). Two broad types of PC consisted of transactional and relational contracts. These two broad types of psychological contracts varied on five essential elements. Five elements consisted of focus the of contract, timeframe, stability, scope, and tangibility (^{Rousseau & McLean-Parks, 1993}). The transactional contract consisted of a short-term period in which both parties had limited involvement. The relational contract consisted of a long-term period in which loyalty replaced in exchange for safety and growth in an organization (^{Morrison & Robinson, 1997}). Psychological contracts converted into transactional contracts after a violation (Robinson et al., 1994).

2.3 Turnover Intention (TI)

Turnover intention represents the paradigm when the employee decides to leave the organization (^{Hulin, 1991}). TI is considered as a personal desire to leave the organization (^{Elangovan, 2001}) Intention to quit recognized as one of the important factors of turnover behaviour (^{Brigham et al., 2007}). Intentions to quit looked as a predictor of actual turnover (^{Griffeth et al., 2000}).

2.4 Personality and Turnover Intention

Personality dimensions of openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, and agreeableness positively and significantly predicted job turnover intentions (^{Sifuna & Musenze, 2014}). Individuals higher in EPD had a more positive effect which made the cause of experiencing positive emotions (^{Clark & Watson, 1999}). An emotionally unstable personality dimension showing negative emotions experienced interpersonal conflict and less social support from coworkers. Thus, they had higher stress levels and higher intentions to quit (^{Organ, 1990}).

2.5 Personality and Psychological Contract

High conscientiousness personality dimension was motivated for task completion as compared to monetary rewards (^{Stewart, 1996}). Therefore, they preferred long-term relationships in a psychological contract rather than the short-term. An emotionally unstable personality dimension had no stability in their emotions and remained worried therefore had less stamina for tolerating changes in the psychological contract (^{Goldberg, 1990}). Neurotics did not prefer to obligate in a long-term relationship in a contract because of these characteristics hold by them. EPD had a social, assertive and determined attitude (^{Costa & McCrae, 1992}). They had an aspiration for status, appreciation, material gaining and for authority and job satisfaction (^{Judge & Ilies, 2002}). They preferred long term relationships in a psychological contract. Because, they had an aspiration for gaining status, recognition, power and for social networking that they could not get in a short-term relationship (^{Krackardt, 1990}). People who had scored high on EPD perceived relational and ideological contracts (^{Vantilborgh et al., 2013}). OEPD had no interest in intrinsic psychological contract inducements (^{Nikolaou et al., 2007}).

2.6 Psychological Contract and Turnover Intention

Violation in psychological contract involved reactions raised due to perceptions of un-fulfilment obligations (^{Robinson & Morrison, 2000}). Violations in psychological contract associated with three categories of employee behaviour namely: intention to quit, neglect of in-role job duties, and organizational citizenship behaviours with partial mediation of unmet expectations and job dissatisfaction (^{William & Daniel, 2000}). A positive association found between relational psychological contract breach and turnover intention but was not perceived between transactional contract breach and turnover intention (Aykan, 2014).

3. Methodology

3.1 Conceptual framework

The conceptual framework is shown in Figure 1.

Source: Own elaboration

Figure 1  Psychological contract as mediator 

3.2 Research design

3.2.1 Purpose and type of investigation

The purpose of this study is analytical and descriptive as the researcher is targeting specific problems and explaining variables in detail, respectively. Type of investigation is correlational as relationships are being tested for variables.

3.2.2 Unit of analysis and time horizon

The unit of analysis is individual because software engineer employees are being taken as samples. The time horizon is cross-sectional because research is studying the relation of variables at one time from different participants.

3.2.3 Study setting and interference

Research is done in a natural environment of organizations where work carries on normally which is also referred as a non-contrived setting. Interferences are minimal because the researcher collected data via questionnaire in a normal working environment or routine without creating any disturbance.

3.2.4 Population and sample

Engineer employees are a population of multinational communication and information technology companies. Sample from the population taken by the researcher is 300 who have enough capacity of representing the population.

3.2.5 Target population

The target population for this study is software engineers working in Lahore.

3.2.6 Sample and sampling technique

The targeted sample was 300 out of which the actual sample was 262 with an 87.33% response rate. ^{Roscoe (1975}) said that multivariate research sample size can from 30 to 500 acceptable ranges. Purposive sampling technique is used for the collection of this data.

3.2.7 Instruments

All four instruments were measured on a 5-point Likert scale where 1 was ‘strongly disagree’ and 5 was ‘strongly agree’. Personality was measured by a 10-item scale Big Five Personality Test (^{Goldberg, 1993}). The psychological contract was measured by an 18-item scale (^{Raja et al., 2004}). Turnover intentions will also be measured from an 18-item scale (^{Masemola, 2011}).

3.2.8 Response rate

From the 300 questionnaires distributed, 262 responses were collected. The total response rate is 87.33%.

3.2.9 Limitations of the study

This research studied only three variables namely, psychological contract, personality, and turnover intention. Therefore, other variables can be considered as moderators and as mediators. This research considers only employees as a unit of analysis. Research can consider employers’ perceptions related to psychological contracts and related to breaches and violations. Further, limitation in our design and analysis was the nonappearance of controlling for the special effects of a variable that may have inclined.

4. Results and data analysis

4.1 Descriptive statistics

Table 1 shows de descriptive statistics.

Table 1 Descriptive statistics 

The minimum score on psychological contract, turnover intentions, extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to experience personality dimensions are 1.47, 1.67, 1.00, 1.50, 1.50, 1.50, and 1.50sequentiallywith the maximum score consists of 4.29, 3.83, 5.00, 5.00, 5.00, 5.00, and 5.00 sequentially. The mean score was about 2.91, 2.80, 2.97, 3.09, 3.18, 3.20, and 3.17 sequentially with a standard deviation of 0.50, 0.43, 0.75, 0.65, 0.75, 0.74, and 0.86 sequentially. The mean for turnover intention which has mean 2.80 (s.d. = 0.43) which is more consistent as compare to emotional stability has highest mean 3.20 (s.d. = 0.74).It shows very little deviation from central values of turnover intention which is better as compared to other variables.

4.2 Correlation matrix

The correlation matrix is shown in Table 2

Table 2 Correlation among variables 

All personality dimensions except emotional stability scales correlated insignificantly with turnover intention, with the weakest but positive correlations for agreeableness (0.071), conscientiousness (0.095), extraversion (0.114), openness to experience (0.010) and the moderated but significant correlation for emotional stable (0.325). The psychological contract correlated significantly with the strongest but positive correlations (0.681) with turnover intention. The psychological contract correlated significantly with the weakest but positive correlations with agreeableness (0.162) and emotional stability (0.332). Extroversion personality dimension correlated insignificantly with the weakest but positive correlations for agreeableness (0.031), openness to experience (0.073) and emotional stable (0.031) but correlated significantly weak and negative with conscientiousness (-0.192). The psychological contract correlated insignificantly with the weakest but positive correlations (0.117) with extroversion. Conscientiousness personality dimension correlated insignificantly with the weakest and positive correlations for agreeableness (0.074), openness to experience (0.056) but correlated significantly positive and weakest with emotional stability (0.229). The psychological contract correlated significantly with the weakest but positive correlations (0.199) with conscientiousness. Openness to experience personality dimension correlated insignificantly with the weakest but positive correlations emotionally stable (0.03). The psychological contract correlated insignificantly with the weakest but negative correlations (-0.086) with openness to experience.

4.3 Hypothesis testing

Table 3 describes the personality dimensions with TI.

Table 3 Big five personality dimensions with Turnover Intention 

Regression model is significant (F= 7.233, p<0.05). A positive and moderate degree of correlation found between the big five personality dimensions and turnover intention (R=0.352). In turnover intention, 12.4% variation explained due to the big five personality dimensions (R²=0.124).

Our first sign of generalizability is the adjusted R² value which is adjusted for the number of variables included in the regression equation. These values are very close expecting minimal decline based on this indicator (Adjusted R²=0.107). The standard error of the estimate is a measure of the scattering in the predicted scores in a regression. In a scatterplot in which the standard error of the estimate is small then most of the observed values cluster closely to the regression line. Big five personality dimensions predicted score is likely to vary within plus or minus 0.40 on turnover intention.

H _1a : Extroversion has a significant positive relationship with turnover intentions.

Beta indicates changes in extroversion personality dimension brought positive and insignificant increment in turnover intention (b=0.111, t=1.842, p>0.05). Hence hypothesis 1a is rejected according to standards of b value which significance value (p=0.067) is greater than 0.05. The extroversion personality dimension has an insignificant effect on employees’ turnover intention as the beta value shown unimportant change.

H _1b : Agreeableness has a significant relationship with turnover intention.

Beta indicates changes in agreeableness personality dimension brought positive and insignificant increments in turnover intention (b=.074, t=1.248, p>0.05). Hence hypothesis 1b is rejected according to standards of b value which significance value (p=0.213) is greater than 0.05. Agreeableness personality dimension has effects but insignificant in employees’ turnover intention.

H _1c : Conscientiousness has a significant relationship with turnover intention.

Beta indicates changes in conscientiousness personality dimension brought positive and insignificant increments in turnover intention (b=0.040, t=0.643, p>0.05). Hence hypothesis 1c is rejected according to standards of b value which significance value (p=0.521) is greater than 0.05. Conscientiousness personality dimension has effects but insignificant in employees’ turnover intention.

H _1d : Emotionally stability has a significant relationship with turnover intention.

Beta indicates changes in the emotional stability personality dimension brought positive and significant increments in turnover intention (b=0.315, t=5.214, p<0.05). Hence hypothesis 1d is accepted according to standards of b value which significance value (p=0.000) is less than 0.05. Emotional stable employees have a positive attitude toward turnover intention as beta value has shown a significant change in turnover intention. Its effects cannot ignore for controlling turnover.

H _1e : Openness to experience has a significant relationship with turnover intention.

Beta indicates changes in openness to experience personality dimension brought negative and insignificant decrement in turnover intention (b= -0.015, t= -0.262, p>0.05). Hence hypothesis 1e is rejected according to standards of b value which significance value (p=0.793) is greater than 0.05. Employees higher in openness to experience personality dimension has reduced turnover intention but, it is not essential as beta value has shown an insignificant change in turnover intention.

4.4 Mediation testing

Table 4 shows the mediation testing.

Table 4 Bootstrapped conditional indirect and total effects of the big five personality dimensions on Turnover Intention through Psychological Contract 

H _2a : Psychological contract mediates the relationship between extroversion and turnover intentions.

Extroversion personality dimension brought positive but insignificant increment in turnover intention directly (0.0201) that fall within bootstrap limits (-0.0314 to 0.0716) but p-value (0.4429) is exceed from significance value (0.05) that shows the insignificance of this direct effects.

Extroversion has an indirect effect (0.045) on turnover intention through psychological contract. Indirect effects have confidence interval from (0.0045) to (0.0975). Hence, indirect effect (0.045) lies within confidence interval but according to normality tests, it’s not normal (p>0.05). So, hypothesis 2a rejected as the psychological contract does not mediate between extroversion personality dimension and turnover intention. Similarly, the total effect that includes both direct and indirect effects that equal to .0651. It falls within bootstrap limits (-0.0041 to 0.1344) but p-value (0.0653) is greater than significance value (0.05).

H _2b : Psychological contract mediates the relationship between agreeableness and turnover intentions.

Agreeableness personality dimension brought negative but insignificant increment in turnover intention directly (-0.02) that fall within bootstrap limits (-0.0869 to 0.0338) but p-value (0.38) exceeds from significance value (0.05) that show the insignificance of this direct effects. Indirect effects have confidence interval from (0.029) to (0.128). Hence, the indirect effect (0.07) lies within confidence interval but according to normality tests its normal as the p-value (0.009) is less than the significance value (0.05). So, hypothesis 2b accepted as psychological contract mediates between agreeableness personality dimension and turnover intention. Similarly, total effect (0.0473) falls within bootstrap limits (-0.0337to 0.1283) but p-value (0.25) is greater than significance value (0.05).

H _2c : Psychological contract mediates the relationship between conscientiousness and turnover intentions.

Conscientiousness personality dimension brought negative but insignificant increment in turnover intention directly (-0.0240) that fall within bootstrap limits (-0.0762 to 0.0282) but p-value (0.3654) exceeds from significance value (0.05) that shows the insignificance of this direct effects. Conscientiousness has an indirect effect (0.0784) on turnover intention through psychological contract. Indirect effects have confidence interval from (0.0343 to 0.1219). But according to normality tests, it's normal as the p-value (0.001) is less than the significance value (0.05). So, hypothesis 2c accepted as psychological contract mediates between conscientiousness personality dimension and turnover intention. Similarly, the total effect that includes both direct and indirect effects that equal to .0544. It falls within bootstrap limits (-0.0151 to 0.1239) but p-value (0.1243) is greater than significance value (0.05).

H _2d : Psychological contract mediates the relationship between emotional stability and turnover intentions.

The emotional stable personality dimension brought positive but significant increment in turnover intention directly (0.0651) that fall within bootstrap limits (0.0103 to 0.1200) but p-value (0.0201) is less from significance value (0.05) that shows the significance of this direct effects.

Indirect effects have confidence interval from (0.0804 to 0.1720). Hence, indirect effect (0.1244) lie within confidence interval but according to normality tests its normal as the p-value (0.0000) is less than the significance value (0.05). So, hypothesis 2d accepted so psychological contract mediates between emotionally stable personality dimension and turnover intention. Similarly, the total effect that includes both direct and indirect effects that equal to 0.1896. It falls within bootstrap limits (0.1222 to 0.2569) but p-value (0.0000) is less than significance value (0.05).

H _2e : Psychological contract mediates the relationship between openness to experience and turnover intentions.

Open to experience personality dimension brought positive but insignificant increment in turnover intention directly (0.0349) that fall within bootstrap limits (-0.0102 to 0.0800) but p-value (0.1286) is greater from significance value (0.05) that shows the insignificance of this direct effects. Indirect effects have confidence interval from (-0.0816 to 0.0123). Hence, indirect effect (-0.0298) lies within confidence interval but according to normality tests, it’s not normal as the p-value (0.1662) is greater than the significance value (0.05). So, hypothesis 2e rejected as psychological contract mediated between open to experience personality dimension and turnover intention. Similarly, the total effect that includes both direct and indirect effects that equal to 0.0051. It falls within bootstrap limits (-0.0564 to 0.0667) but p-value (0.8692) is greater than significance value (0.05).

5. Summary review and discussion

Researchers showed people of extroversion personality and people of positive traits both experienced positive emotions (^{Clark & Watson, 1999}). Regards regression analysis, EPD has a positive but insignificant increment in turnover intention (p>0.05). These results rejected the EPD association with turnover intention. Hence, results supported past researches which showed people who are higher in EPD liked to make groups and wanted to expand the network in organizations. Barrick and Mount (¹⁹⁹⁶) showed in the big five personality construct that conscientiousness had a negative association with turnover. CPD brings a positive but insignificant increment in turnover intention (p>0.05). These results rejected the CPD association with turnover intention. CPD liked disciplines, achievements, and challenges in works. If these types of personalities found challenging works and appreciations or rewards in excellent performances, then chances of retention go up in organizations instead of lower salaries.

Positive and significant increments in turnover intention come due to emotional stability personality (p<0.05). This result is opposite to expectations. This type of personality may have a higher turnover intention but practically, they avoid resigning due to a higher tolerance level of facing difficult situations. APD had conformity and reliance characteristics therefore they retained in the organization (^{Maertz & Griffeth, 2004}). Results showed agreeableness has effects but insignificant in employees’ turnover intention. These results rejected the APD association with turnover intention. It may be insignificant due to inclination toward team-oriented and compromising personal needs for the sake of group goals. The positive correlation between turnover and OEPD is inconsistent with ^{Salgado's (2002)}. Negative beta value (-0.015) represented to lower turnover intention, if open to experience personality dimension found higher in an employee. This negative effect is unimportant according to results. It may unimportant due to the interest of this personality in experiencing new things and in taking risks.

We inferred our findings concerning personality and psychological contract in terms of employee choice and understanding of contracts. Regards results, extroversion brought an insignificant increment in the psychological contract (p>0.05). Further, the indirect effect showed the psychological mediating effect between EPD and TI. Psychological mediation brought increment in the intention of quit (0.0450). This indirect effect is insignificant (p>0.05) which showed that PC does not mediate between EPD and TI. Directly, APD brought positive and significant increments in the psychological contract. Indirectly, APD affects 0.0739 units more on turnover intention after passing from psychological contract mediation. It is less as compare to emotional stability (0.1895), conscientiousness (0.0784) but more as compare to extroversion (0.0450). Results showed that APD motivated toward psychological contract if pro-social motives are meets.

CPD brought positive and significant increments in PC. Regards regression results, CPD has more turnover intention after passing from the psychological contract (0.0784) which is greater to extroversion in which turnover intention was (0.0450). These results supported previous studies in which conscientiousness preferred achievements and challenging tasks. If they found challenging tasks then they do not perceive breach in the psychological contract as a result have less turnover intention (^{Rousseau, 1995}). NPD had limited social skill therefore avoid that context demand taking control (^{Judge & Cable, 1997}). On the other hand, EPD had control of emotion and tolerance levels. ESPD brought positive and significant increments in the psychological contract. This shows the important role of this personality dimension forming a psychological contract that brought positive but significant increment in turnover intention. Indirectly, ESPD has more turnover intention (0.1896) as compare to conscientiousness (0.0784) and extroversion (0.0450) after passing from a psychological contract. Regards results, emotional stable employees may have the intention of quit but practically they restrict from switching. But if they bound in the contract the intention of quitting increased in case of a contract breach.

People higher in OEPD will have less involvement in PC as it linked with intelligence (^{Fumham et al., 2008}) and linked with degrees of artistic tendencies (^{Chamorro-Premuzic & Reichenbacher, 2008}). Indirectly, OEPD has (0.0298) units less turnover intention through psychological contract mediation. OEPD has less turnover intention as compare to agreeableness (0.0739), emotional stability (0.1895), conscientiousness (0.0784) and extroversion (0.0450). They have turnover intention more because they want to get new experiences for learning new things.

6. Implications of the study and future research

Organization managers will become aware of different personalities’ attitudes toward turnover and toward psychological contracts accordingly, they can recruit those personalities suitable for organization culture, effective performances and for high retention periods. Future research should explore contract breach at longitudinal designs that will offer more considerable proof on the liaison. Future research can be conducted in a more dynamic and varied sample. While there is increasing awareness of the significance of age and work experience in psychological contract construction and assessment. But, practical research on their practical impact is quite rare.

Overall, several authors have considered the significance of individual differences in matters regarding psychological contracts. We have demonstrated that contractual machines are one possible route by which personality affects organizational behaviour. Five factors of personality dimensions have a different psychological contract due to different personal characteristics in different cultures and environments. People choose psychological contracts according to needs and personalities. These psychological contracts have positive and negative relationships with turnover intention. People look toward the fulfilment of obligations promised in the psychological contract. If they perceived breach, then violation feelings arise led toward turnover. Organizations can design a psychological contract according to organizational and different candidate’s needs. Several authors have considered the significance of individual dissimilarities in case of psychological contracts. We have demonstrated that contractual mechanisms are one possible route by which personality dimensions have effects on intention to quit.