From dreams to reality: a phenomenological study of the psychological contracts of ex-military personnel in the Australian Defence Force

Abstract

Current recruitment and retention issues within the armed forces draw links with breach of the psychological contract – the dynamics of the employee–employer relationship. Compared with civilian contexts, a military position is unique, however, there is a dearth of conceptual investigation regarding the lived experiences of military personnel, particularly with respect to how such contracts form. This paper combined a phenomenological approach with the critical decision method to investigate the lived experiences informing contract formation and contract trajectory of ex-military personnel. Lived experiences pointed to the formulation of ‘fuzzy’ contracts, impressions from defence force recruitment, specific tipping points around organisational commitment, and large differences between the fidelity of the idealised and actualised self/job. Seven superordinate themes are elicited that trace the formation and trajectory of the contract. A schematised account of findings is developed to provide avenues to investigate how beliefs form in a military contract context and their outcomes.

Turnover intentions and safety compliance in the military: A psychological contract perspective

“…In their work, they found that military pilots did not alter their neglect behavior when faced with perceptions of PC breach and further unpack these reactions in a qualitative study; this may provide a potential explanation for underfulfillment reactions. These explanations might be grounded in, for example, contextual and background factors (Guest, 2004), the factors during PC formation (Naweed et al, 2021), and/or social network factors (Heffernan & Rochford, 2017).…”