Bridging beliefs and actions: unraveling the impacts of ideological psychological contract fulfillment on employee citizenship behavior in the workplace

Purpose Grounded in psychological contract theory, this study investigates the impact of ideological psychological contract fulfillment on key workplace outcomes, including work engagement, organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior. It further explores the moderating effects of critical organizational factors—artificial intelligence (AI) adoption, diversity climate, and employee well-being—to understand how these contextual elements influence the relationship between ideological psychological contract fulfillment and employee behaviors. By examining these dynamics, the study provides valuable insights into how modern workplaces can leverage psychological contract fulfillment to optimize employee outcomes while navigating technological, cultural, and well-being challenges. Design/methodology/approach In this research, an online survey of employees based in European companies was carried out to examine the proposed hypotheses. Employing 399 workable survey responses, covariance-based structural equation modeling was applied to verify the proposed conceptual model. Findings The empirical findings reveal that fulfillment of ideological psychological contracts is a significant determinant of work engagement and citizenship behavior. Diversity climate and employee well-being strengthen the relationship between ideological psychological contract fulfillment and citizenship behavior whereas breach of transactional and relational psychological contracts weakens the association. Moreover, AI adoption by the organization attenuates the association among ideological psychological contract fulfillment and organizational commitment. Originality/value Contributing to the extant literature, the present research focuses primarily on the outcomes of ideological psychological contracts while previous studies have mainly examined the implications of transactional or relational psychological contracts. In addition, as a novel theoretical contribution, this study sheds light on the interactions between ideological, relational, and transactional psychological contracts and considers important contingency factors affecting the associations among them.