Anticipatory Psychological Contracts of Undergraduates Management Students: Implications for Early Career Entitlement Expectations

The anticipatory psychological contract of management graduates: Validating a psychological contract expectations questionnaire

“…Delobbe, Cooper-Thomas and De Hoe (2016) and Payne et al (2008) studied the role of employees' anticipatory psychological contract in the socialisation process and found that the perception of obligations of prospective employees towards their future employer, prior to organisational entry, did affect their perception and involvement in some of the socialisation activities, specifically in terms of training and interactions with supervisors and peers. Other authors (including De Vos et al 2009;Eilam-Shamir & Yaakobi 2014;Gresse et al 2013;Linde & Gresse 2014;Ruchika & Prasad 2019) have also accepted that the anticipatory psychological contract plays an important role in the development of the exchange relationship between employer and employee and can be especially important in recruitment and talent retention (Zupan, Mihelič & Aleksić 2018). Sherman and Morley (2015) argue that to enhance our understanding of how the psychological contract is created, one should look through the theoretical lens of schema theory, which these authors consider an underdeveloped area within psychological contract research.…”

“…Schema theory provides a theoretical lens to evaluate how the psychological contract works, which emphasises how information is used when parties come to an agreement (Sherman & Morley 2015). Research suggests that individuals already have an established mental schema of what they expect from their future employer, even if they have no prior employment history (Coyle-Shapiro & Parzefall 2008;De Vos et al 2009;Gresse et al 2013;Gresse & Linde 2020;Linde & Gresse 2014), although it is suggested that occupational newcomers' psychological contract is constructed based on a naïve and imperfect schema (Anderson & Thomas 1996;Ruchika & Prasad 2019).…”

“…To fully understand the anticipatory psychological contract of an individual, one needs to take the entitlement perception of that individual into account, which has been established as an influencing agent of a person's expectations (Gresse et al 2013;Linde & Gresse 2014).…”

“…Entitled individuals tend to arrive at their jobs with high levels of demands and expectations (Crampton & Hodge 2009;De Hauw & De Vos 2010). Gresse et al (2013) found that the anticipatory psychological contract of an individual includes entitlement beliefs of employees, which have a positive relationship with the expectation levels that an individual holds, especially regarding career aspirations and workplace benefits (Linde & Gresse 2014). Gresse et al also found that final-year university students' sense of entitlement was influenced by factors relating to self-perception (perception regarding organisational contribution, experience levels and self-efficacy), academic factors (the obtainment of a qualification) and environmental factors (association with a social group, labour market tendencies and cost of living).…”

“…These beliefs by the workplace newcomer are not necessarily based on the actual employment relationship and the resulting legal contract, but rather from social, normative and implicit contract sources. A great deal of attention has been given to how the psychological contract develops once an individual is employed (for instance Adams, Quagrainie & Klobodu 2014;O'Leary-Kelly et al 2014;Tomprou & Nikolaou 2011), but relatively little attention has been given to the anticipatory psychological contract that precedes employment, with only a few publications on this topic (for instance De Vos, Stobbeleir & Meganck 2009; Gresse & Linde 2020; Gresse, Linde & Schalk 2013;Linde & Gresse 2014). It should however be noted that there has been an increased call for research involving the anticipatory psychological contract in recent years (Bruins 2019;Janani 2019;Ruchika & Prasad 2019).…”