Psychological and implied contracts in organizations

Abstract

Two forms of unwritten contracts derive from relations between organizations and their members. Psychological contracts are individual beliefs in a reciprocal obligation between the individual and the organization. Implied contracts are mutual obligations characterizing interactions existing at the level of the relationship (e.g., dyadic, interunit). Employee~employer relations and changing conditions of employment give rise to issues not addressed in conventional transaction-oriented models of motivation and individual responses. The development, maintenance, and violation of psychological and implied contracts are described along with their organizational implications.

Creating a more quit-friendly national workforce? Individual layoff history and voluntary turnover.

“…While we are limited here in that we cannot measure the mediating mechanisms that we describe, the manner in which these literatures converge to yield the prediction of a positive layoffturnover association provides a strong, albeit indirect, conceptual basis for our hypotheses (see (Rousseau, 1989). While these perceptions of what is owed to, and from, the employer are influenced by the employee's interactions with organizational representatives, complete information regarding employer intentions is unlikely, especially at early stages of the employment relationship (Rousseau, 2001).…”

“…The psychological contract describes the reciprocal exchange agreement between employee and employing organization, as perceived by Individual Layoff History and Voluntary Turnover ! 7 the worker (Rousseau, 1989). While these perceptions of what is owed to, and from, the employer are influenced by the employee's interactions with organizational representatives, complete information regarding employer intentions is unlikely, especially at early stages of the employment relationship (Rousseau, 2001).…”

“…This expectation of psychological spillover, in which a past layoff untethers the victim from subsequent employers, is evident in the lay business press's frequent characterization of layoffs as precipitating a free agent mentality, leaving the workplace replete with employees with low levels of commitment and loyalty to the employer (O'Reilly, 1994;Hirsch, 1987;Munk, 2000;Pink, 2001). Yet, specific theorizing is lacking to date.Fortunately, however, several conceptual frameworks suggest how this spillover can occur.While we are limited here in that we cannot measure the mediating mechanisms that we describe, the manner in which these literatures converge to yield the prediction of a positive layoffturnover association provides a strong, albeit indirect, conceptual basis for our hypotheses (see (Rousseau, 1989). While these perceptions of what is owed to, and from, the employer are influenced by the employee's interactions with organizational representatives, complete information regarding employer intentions is unlikely, especially at early stages of the employment relationship (Rousseau, 2001).…”

Can job redesign interventions influence a broad range of employee outcomes by changing multiple job characteristics? A quasi-experimental study.

“…The affective outcome is employee well-being, i.e., longerterm levels of pleasant affect such as enthusiasm and contentment, and a lack of unpleasant affect such as anxiety and depression (Warr, 1990). The behavioral outcome is supervisor ratings of job performance, i.e., the extent to which an employee meets task requirements (Griffin, Neal & Parker, 2007) and the attitudinal outcome is psychological contract fulfillment, which concerns employee beliefs on whether the organization has fulfilled its obligation to provide suitable work and employment characteristics (Rousseau, 1995). We examined employee well-being as its improvement was a central objective of the job redesign intervention.…”

“…There are also strong theoretical reasons to expect these two job characteristics to influence employee attitudes concerned with the psychological contract. The psychological contract can be defined, from an employee's perspective, as the set of expectations about the mutual obligations between the employee and the organization (Sparrow, 1996;Rousseau, 1995). An employee's perception of organizational 12 obligations typically covers areas such as pay and benefits, security, and working time (Robinson & Rousseau, 1994), as well as the organization's obligation to provide suitable job characteristics such as a reasonable level of autonomy, adequate feedback and variety (Westwood, Sparrow & Leung, 2001).…”