According to Freese (2007), a psychological contract relates to an employee’s belief about his labor contribution and the expected reward from management. Emphatically, a psychological contract explained in few words implies the terms of an agreement between the employee and the administration as it exists in the employee’s mindset. It goes beyond the written contract terms but instead, deals with the belief of the employee. According to Herriot et al. (1997), they conceived psychological contracts in two ways. Firstly, from the standpoint, two parties are involved where both have their obligations to perform as it concerns an employment agreement. These obligations should be clear and easily understood through formal documentation of an agreement term between the employee and the organization or suggested without being directly expressed. Secondly, a psychological contract comes from the employee’s mental set (Herriot et al., 1997). This approach addresses the feelings and opinions of the employee concerning the exchange terms as the organization models it. In psychological contract, Rousseau (1995) noted that employees willingly accept the official agreement concerning their obligations and management. According to Rousseau (1990), the psychological contract is described primarily on an individual’s thoughts or beliefs rather than facts and may sometimes be unjust.

For example, employees expect (that) higher pay, promotion, and a good working environment will reciprocate hard work and obedience (Rousseau, 1990). As we study the academia, we align with the second conceptualization of psychological contract, which relies on the belief an employee holds about his duties and his expectations from the management in return. These expectations trigger the employee’s perception of management defiance from promise (Robinson and Rousseau, 1994; Zhao, Wayne, et al., 2007). Studies on psychological contract breaches found that organizational obligations and violated promises negatively influence employees’ attitudes and actions (Robinson and Rousseau, 1994; Kiewitz et al., 2009). In addition, employees who see a breach of the psychological contract begin to wonder if they should stay in the organization or whether the continuation of work relations would benefit them or not (Turnley and Feldman, 2000; Aykan, 2014). As a result, in this investigation, this hypothesis was developed:

H1: Psychological contract breach will positively predict turnover intentions among lecturers in Nigerian private universities.

Organizational climate is the typical features or qualities that define an organization’s work environment, differentiating it from another. To a large degree, these qualities could last long and alter employees’ behavior in the organization (Liou and Cheng, 2010). More so, to a large extent, organizational climate includes behaviors that encourage healthy interaction among university staff members. It enables academic and non-academic workers to collaborate in academic-related tasks, facilitating corporate goals and objectives. Domitrovicha et al. (2019) used the term school climate to explain organizational climate. They defined it as the perception the staff hold concerning their safety, associations, relationships, academic practices, and the teaching environment, including their mode of operations and functioning. Cohen et al. (2009) noted that this organizational climate develops due to the constant social, academic, and administrative practices among staff and management of such institutions. This interaction builds the trust, loyalty, and managerial leadership style that define the organizational climate. Literature has suggested that organizational climate and psychological contract breach do not relate positively (Ahmed and Muchiri, 2014; Terera, 2019). According to reports, individuals who feel a breach of psychological contract are often from a hostile work environment. A sign of an unfulfilled contract is an indication of a poor work environment.

Puspitawati and Atmaja (2019) suggest that organizational climate is negatively associated with turnover intention. An employee’s purpose defines and moderates his level of work performance because it influences his choice of action (Mishra and Bhatnagar, 2010). The features or qualities of this organizational climate are peculiar and unique to every university. Thus, it serves as the yardstick for measuring an employee’s feelings and beliefs about his university. Within the university environment, organizational climate affects employees’ efficiency, output, and commitment as it defines their contribution to students’ learning and community development. Research has shown that the growth and success of these universities could depend heavily on the organizational climate that exists within them. Hartini et al. (2020) reported that organizational climate and turnover intentions share a negative relationship. With the introduction of a favorable organizational climate such as reward, responsibility, and good standards, the management could minimize the rate of turnover intentions (Carmeli and Vinarski-peretz, 2010; Subramanian and Shin, 2013). Most studies have argued that turnover intentions are disruptive and unhealthy for organizational growth and development, negatively impacting work outcomes (Chau et al., 2009; Jeswani and Dave, 2012; Mei Teh, 2014).

Schneider et al. (2000) posited that organizational climate is the air workers breathe, feel, and sense their corporate practices, ideas, plans, and strategies. Employees monitor their work environments concerning their activities and decipher what is more important to their organization. There are five components to organizational climate: supportive behavior, directive behavior, dynamic behavior, frustrating behavior, and intimate behavior. The efforts of university officials to stimulate, assist, and promote lecturers’ welfare and task achievements in the university imply supportive conduct. It is managerial conduct that encourages workers to feel pleasant, calm, and a sense of belonging to the university. “Directive conduct” refers to a university’s strict, regulated, and authoritative monitoring of lecturers and university activities. Lecturers’ engaged behavior refers to their proud, dedicated, and supportive attitude toward their colleagues, students, and the university. Frustrated conduct characterizes a lecturer’s sense of burden and interference from colleagues and administrative tasks unrelated to instructing. These are the habits that keep instructors stressed and dissatisfied with the university system. Finally, the term “intimate behavior” refers to a lecturer’s strong and coherent social relationships with other colleagues. These are behaviors that promote pleasantries, friendliness, and support among colleagues.

Several studies have found a favorable relationship between organizational climate and workplace outcomes such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job performance, job participation, and organizational citizenship behavior (Adeyemi, 2008; Agyemang, 2013; Berberoglu, 2018; Bhat, 2013; Bhat and Bashir, 2016; Gheisari et al., 2014; Nwankwo et al., 2015; Okoli, 2019; Raja et al., 2019; Tsai, 2014; Turan, 1998; Valdez and Villa, 2019), and negatively linked to a psychological contract breach, counterproductive work behavior, and turnover intentions (Kanten, and Ülker, 2013; Chernyak-Hai, and Tziner, 2014; Kasekende et al., 2015; Conley and You, 2018; Sheu et al., 2019). According to Bamberger et al. (2008), an adverse organizational atmosphere might contribute to turnover intentions and other bad behavior. Given the nature of the negative consequences of a hostile corporate environment at universities, we anticipate that organizational climate (dimensions) will mitigate the association between psychological contract violation and desire to leave (see Figure 1). As reviewed literature has shown the high rate of turnover intentions in organizations like the university, we presume that the climate perceived by the academia could determine the extent they commit to the university. Thus, we hypothesized the following:

The study anchors on the social exchange theory because psychological contracts rely on giving and taking. Bal et al. (2013), Kasekende et al. (2015) used the social exchange paradigm to demonstrate that high-social exchange acts as a buffer on the negative link between psychological contract breach and performance.

Interestingly, some authors (Idogho, 2006; Adenike, 2011; Adeniji et al., 2018) attributed a lot of adverse behavioral outcomes among academia to unfavorable work climates. The resultant effect is that these unhealthy work behaviors have crippled the academic and social activities that should flourish in these universities. Furthermore, this unhealthy climate has led to insufficient enthusiasm, diminished work motivation, frustration, and tension among academic staff (Adeniji, 2011; Adeniji et al., 2018). To bolster this assertion, Adenike, (2011) and Afolabi (2005) suggested that researchers should study the organizational climate of Nigerian private universities further to trace the precursors of turnover intentions among lecturers.

The 2020 lockdown of academic activities in Nigeria made most private universities adopt virtual working platforms (e.g., Microsoft Team, Zomm, WebEx etc.). Virtual learning which has been used in the developed world even before the pandemic transitioned seamlessly compared to less developed countries like Nigeria (Kyari et al., 2018). This form of learning is considered to be better than the usual in-person interaction because it has the advantage of reaching many learners at the same time and does not require them to come together in a place (Ajadi et al., 2008). This shift consequently has affected the lecturers as some of these new technologies has a steep learning curve affecting some of them in adjusting (Zalat et al., 2021). The learning, and social interaction with peers and other forms of socialization among colleagues have been transferred online which resulted in a significant difference in the reactions to the lockdowns between academic staff and students.

In summary, the present study examines the relationship between psychological contract breach and turnover intentions. Also, the moderating effects of organizational climate dimensions on the association between psychological contract breaches and turnover intentions. Using social exchange theory to establish an integrative framework of psychological contract breach, turnover intentions, and organizational climate. As much as the private universities’ salaries are less than the government owned institutions, some staff remain even with opportunities for a higher paying job. This discrepancy cannot be captured in the social exchange theory. The gap here highlights the organizational cultural differences that explained the pattern of turnover intentions. This study also highlighted how organizational climate attenuates the effect of unfulfilled promises in the lecturers’ intention to leave.

This study enlisted the participation of 584 lecturers from seven private institutions in Southeast, Nigeria. Renaissance University (76), Tansian University (82), Gregory University (68), Godfrey Okoye University (84), Paul University (89), Madonna University (119), and Evangel University (66) are among these institutions. We choose these lecturers at random from these seven private institutions. Among these lecturers, 444 were men (76%) while 140 were females (24%), 419 were married (71.7%) while 165 were single (28.3%); 81were senior lecturers (13.87%), 59 were lecturer I (10.10%), 185 were lecturer II (31.68%), 188 were assistant lecturers (32.19 percent) and 71 were graduate assistants (12.16%). Participants varied in age from 24 to 53 years (M = 38.24, SD = 7.33).

The researchers used the psychological Contract Breach Scale established by Robinson and Morrison (1995) to assess the breach of the perceived contract of lecturers at their private institutions. They respond to a five-point Likert scale, ranging from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree. The 5-item measure yielded a reliability value of α = 0.92 to Robinson and Morrison (2000). Examples include: “I believe my employer has fulfilled the promises made to me” and “My employer has broken many of its promises to me, despite the fact that I have kept my end of the bargain.” In addition, three items were reverse-scored, and two direct scored. According to Robinson and Morrison (2000), high ratings imply a lack of contract fulfillment and vice versa. In this study, we achieved a reliability index for the scale of α = 0.87. A high score on this metric suggests that the contract is not holding and unfulfilled.

The Kottkamp et al. (1987) OCDQ-RS is a 34 item measure developed to assess the organizational climate of teachers and principals in secondary schools. This measure evaluates five different behavioral attributes of teachers and principals in the school. The response options range from 1 (rarely occurs) to 4 (frequently occurs). These items tap the frequency of occurrence of such behaviors. The research instruments’ reliability consistency was high for the dimensions with principal supportive behavior (α = 0.91) 7items, directive behavior (α = 0.87) 7 items, engaged teacher behavior (α = 0.85) 10 items, frustrated teacher behavior (α = 0.85) 6 items, and intimate teacher behavior (α = 0.71) 4 items.

The OCDQ-RS was modified to suit the university community using field testing, validity, and reliability studies. We used the content and construct validation process to confirm the validity of the instrument. We subjected the OCDQ-RS to a reliability test. We obtained further validation using the responses received from 114 lecturers drawn from Caritas University. Caritas University is one of the private universities in the region and share most characteristics with other private universities in the region. In adopting the scale, we modified some words and items to suit the university community. We changed the terms “principal” to “university authority,” “school” changed to “university,” the word “teachers” was changed to “lecturers,” “teaching” changed to “lecturing.” Also, item number twenty-five (25), “the principal is available after school to help teachers when assistance is needed,” was changed to “the university authority is available to help lecturers when assistance is needed.” The modifications were necessary to capture the terminologies of a university setting. The inter-item correlation of the 34 items ranged from −0.08 to.55 during item analysis, with an internal consistency reliability estimate of Cronbach alpha =0.70. The item analysis also revealed coefficient alpha values of 0.72, 0.67, 0.66, 0.68, and 71 for OCDQ-RS supportive behavior, directed behavior, engaged behavior, frustrated behavior, and intimate behavior.

We used the 5-item Turnover Intentions Scale to measure the lecturer’s turnover intentions (Bluedorn, 1982). They were asked to assess their level of agreement on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 indicating significant disagreement and 5 indicating strong agreement. “I am actively pursuing an alternate employment” and “I will hunt for a new job outside of this organization within the next year” are two examples. Bluedorn (1982) earned α =0.90 dependability index. The researchers obtained an alpha of 0.82 in this study. A high score on the turnover intention measure shows that the company has a substantial turnover intentions.

This study adopted a time-lagged design (2-weeks interval) for a period of 1 month using a multi-sectional questionnaire containing both the demographics and the scales. We employed some academic staff in these universities who helped the administration process by distributing this questionnaire to the lecturers in these private universities. The researchers distributed copies of this questionnaire in two batches (2 weeks interval). These research assistants came to serve as informants in this study and supply independent and dependent variable assessments. We distributed the copies of the questionnaire containing the independent factors first, followed by the documents containing the dependent variables. Notably, copies of this questionnaire were tagged with numbers for easy pairing with the sampled lecturers across the two batches. Only those lecturers that consented to the study participated. Those that participated were encouraged to complete the questionnaire within 2 days. However, the research assistants collected the distributed copies within 2 weeks across the two batches. We discarded few copies due to improper completion and the remaining analyzed. The anonymity of the participants was assured by adopting a researcher-to-participant communication during the follow-up phase and all data that could be linked to the participants were destroyed after data entry.

This research ascertained the inter-relationships among the study variables through Pearson r correlation, hypotheses tested using Hayes, (2013, Hayes, 2014) regression-based PROCESS macro. IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences was used to analyze (SPSS v 25). The variables were analyzed across six models considering psychological contract breach, turnover intentions, and organizational climate (supportive, directive, engaged, intimate), as independent, dependent, and moderating variables.

The current study’s findings have several implications. Several deductions can be made that can benefit future researchers, policymakers, stakeholders, employers of labor, and workers in the educational sector. First, the study provides insight into variables that either promote or stimulate turnover intentions among employees in private universities (in South-East Nigeria) as a sample. Psychological contract breach predicted turnover intentions far more optimistically. This finding could explain this present result on the premise that unfulfilled promises boomerang on the violators of such commitment. Turnover intention is an emotional state that signals an unfavorable environment; therefore, it may not be surprising that management that breaks a contract or agreement may likely face the exit of its employees. A working contract states that you (employee) will receive payment in return for the services rendered. The expectation is that both parties should follow any agreement reached. Management’s breach or, contract violation demands activities such as a dispute, unproductive work behavior, neglect of tasks, sabotage, insubordination, and discontent, all of which generate turnover intentions or actual turnover. Organizations that engage in breach or violation of organizational contracts should also expect the exit of their employees, particularly in our private educational sector (universities, polytechnic, college of education, secondary schools, etc.) or other sectors where there are alternatives. Besides, this exit or intent to quit does no good to the management because the cost of replacing and training new personnel is high. An organization that surrounds itself with uncertainties faces an unexpected departure of its employees. When employees see themselves as “partners in the agreement,” they could go the extra mile to protect that agreement.

Personnel policies, working conditions, and decision-making involvement may all be said to dependably make up the corporate environment. Using academics in private institutions in south-eastern Nigeria, studies have revealed that workers’ turnover intentions are a product of the atmosphere in the company in which they work in the Nigerian setting. A positive organizational environment improves an organization’s performance, production, and employee satisfaction. Breach of psychological contract will threaten employee wellbeing in the workplace. In that case, there’s a need for the management to reintroduce the sense of trust, safety, and belongingness among employees to repel turnover intentions. Understanding the dynamics of links and the consequences of the influences between organizational climate dimensions (factors) and turnover intentions is critical for organizational development. This study revealed supportive, engaged, and intimate behaviors as modifiers in the connection between psychological contract breach and turnover intentions among lecturers at Nigerian private institutions, among other characteristics of the organizational environment. These behaviors encourage the lecturers to remain and overcome trial periods in the work domain. A favorable climate harbors an organism, while unfavorable weather drives it away. So it could be in many organizations, university environment inclusive. Organizations and managers should be aware of the link between organizational fairness and work results. Organizations (universities, hospitals, firms, industries, banks, etc.) should practice supportive behaviors that favor workers because they will strengthen their willingness to remain in such organizations. Such supportive behaviors include a good personnel welfare package, encouraging and motivating organizational policies (e.g., awards), providing financial assistance in related academic programs. Such behaviors will improve the standard and image of our Nigerian organizations. Our lecturers should embrace engaged and intimate behavior because they provide social relief through interaction and communication in difficult times.

Again, about career development, these scholars working in private universities develop their academic careers by researching, publishing articles and textbooks relevant to their specialties, attending conferences and various workshops, engaging in administrative roles within academic and higher education—these academic exercises gear towards career development. Doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers, and other multiple ranks attain personal goals and receive tangible rewards such as promotions for their intellectual abilities and contributions. These career development practices in academics prepare them for a more significant task ahead in challenging times, particularly during unfulfilled contracts from the management.

Supportive, engaged, and intimate work behaviors from the management and lecturers will help provide the necessary techniques to help aggrieved lecturers cope in tension-soaked situations and sustain their jobs. Having developed in ranks and status through academic exposure, these lecturers opt to public institutions where the management will keep the agreement’s terms. They can also tarry in such challenging and unfavorable conditions hoping to become part of the management team sometime in the future by clinging on to some administrative roles and positions such as heads of departments, deans, and members of the senate and appraisal board. In other words, it is the social or economic benefits from the work environment that defines the position of the lecturer in the university.

In summary, these lecturers in private universities give and receive from the system that determines their intent to stay or leave. This belief gives credence to the hypothesized social exchange theory. These thoughts of challenging conditions and uncertainties in the universities bedevil the quest to stay. When there is the perception of lack of trust, safety, and sense of belongingness from the management, it spurs the individuals (lecturers) to struggle for survival academically. Specifically, this struggle for survival is the driving force that propels them to the summit of their career.

During an interview in a newspaper report (Premiumtimes, December 1 Agency Reporting, 2016), the respondents indicated an unfulfilled agreement (e.g., epileptic appraisal and promotion process, irregular payment of salaries, poor welfare packages, work entitlements, job insecurity, heavy work pressure/overload, and poor academic infrastructures) created a sense of fear, distrust, and imbalance in the employment exchange equation and high turnover in privately owned universities. These lecturers attributed these negative changes and uncertainties in private universities to the management’s poor administrative and leadership qualities. It creates and defines the regular pathway that turnover intentions ply. Management needs to reintroduce trust, honesty, and confidence to reform the perception of these lecturers among their employees by redefining the purpose and ideology of the university. By so doing, the management will restore the reputation and integrity of these universities.

The study noted drawbacks such as the focus on private universities. As a result, the study paves the way for further research possibilities to broaden knowledge at other private institutions, i.e., polytechnics, and colleges of education compared to government owned institutions. Literature has suggested that the organizational climates between private and public universities could differ due to their cultural variations. Furthermore, we selected these private universities at random from the country’s south-eastern region. Other researchers can obtain a more reliable result with further investigations in this area using samples drawn from the country’s six geo-political zones. Again, the nature of this study did not give room to determine causal effect among the variables.