Consequences of the psychological contract for the employment relationship : a large scale surveyOriginally published in Journal of management studies, 37 (7 AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to thank Mark Fenton-O'Creevy, David Guest, Hyun-Jung Lee, Tim Morris and Stephen Wood for their suggestions on a previous draft of this paper. The helpful comments of the reviewers are gratefully acknowledged. A portion of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, San Diego, 1998. ABSTRACTThe renewed interest in the concept of the psychological contract has come to the fore in attempts to describe, understand and predict the consequences of changes occurring in the employment relationship. Recognising that the employment relationship includes two parties to the exchange process, we set out to examine the content and state of the psychological contract from both the employee and employer perspective. The two perspectives permit an examination of the mutuality of obligations, which has not received much empirical attention to date. The research methodology consists of two surveys conducted in a large local authority directly responsible and accountable for a range of public services including education, environmental health and social care to the local population. The key findings suggest that the majority of employees have experienced contract breach. This view is also supported by managers, as representatives of the employer, who further indicate that the organization, given its external pressures, is not fulfilling its obligations to employees to the extent that it could. Overall, the results indicate that employees are redressing the balance in the relationship through reducing their commitment and their willingness to engage in organizational citizenship behaviour when they perceive their employer as not having fulfilled its part in the exchange process.

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Psychological contracts and perceived organizational support Exchange relationships: Examining psychological contracts and perceived organizational support Three hundred and forty seven public sector employees were surveyed on four measurement occasions to investigate the conceptual distinctiveness of the psychological contract and perceived organizational support (POS) and how they are associated over time. Results support the distinctiveness of the two concepts. In terms of their inter-relationships over time, drawing on psychological contract theory, we found little support for a reciprocal relationship between POS and psychological contract fulfillment. Under an alternative set of hypotheses, drawing on organizational support theory and by separating psychological contract fulfillment into its two components (perceived employer obligations and inducements), we found that perceived employer inducements was positively related to POS which, in turn, was negatively related to perceived employer obligations. Finally, the results suggest that POS and the components of psychological contract fulfillment are more important in predicting organizational citizenship behavior than psychological contract fulfillment.

This study examined the contribution of the psychological contract framework to understanding organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) using survey data gathered at three measurement points over a three year period from 480 public sector employees. Separating perceived contract breach into its two components, the data suggest that perceived employer obligations explained unique variance in three dimensions of citizenship behavior (helping, advocacy and functional participation) beyond that accounted for by perceived employer inducements. Employees' acceptance of the norm of reciprocity moderated the relationship between employer inducements and the dimensions of advocacy and functional participation. Employees' trust in their employer moderated the relationship between perceived employer obligations and the dimensions of advocacy and functional participation. Contrary to the hypothesis, procedural or interactional justice were not found to moderate the relationship between the psychological contract and OCB.The implications of the findings for psychological contract research are discussed.-3 -Psychological contracts and OCB

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